In reply to Axil Axil's message of Wed, 3 Apr 2013 23:38:46 -0400: Hi, [snip] >The higher the energy, the smaller the body, going down from outer electron >shells to individual nucleons and, presumably, quarks. But as the size >decreases, the probability of an interaction will no doubt go down in >corresponding measure, because the size of the targets decreases as well. > So by the time you get to gammas, they will largely pass through a region >of interest. For photons of high enough energy, the mean free path >generally goes up, meaning they travel farther and farther through the >material. Once we're at gammas, I believe a typical metal will be largely >transparent to them. > > > >This is a false assumption. Nanoplasmoics show strong coupling between >light and electrons at 10 to the minus 8 power of the wavelength of light. > >This same ability to couple gammas to electrons external to the nucleus is >probable.
The ability of gammas to penetrate various elements can be calculated using a similar approach to that which I recently suggested in regard to neutrons. The appropriate constants are tabularized here:- http://www.nist.gov/pml/data/xraycoef/index.cfm Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
