Everyday Use
Ionization-type smoke detectors are gaseous ionization detectors in widespread use. A small source of radioactive americium is placed so that it maintains a current between two plates that effectively form an ionisation chamber. If smoke gets between the plates where ionization is taking place, the ionized gas can be neutralized leading to a reduced current. The decrease in current triggers a fire alarm.
Read more about this topic: Gaseous Ionization Detectors
Famous quotes containing the word everyday:
“A really tight friendship is when you start to really care about the person. If he gets sick, you kind of start worrying about him—or if he gets hit by a car. An everyday friend, you say, I know that kid, he’s all right, and you don’t really think much of him. But a close friend you worry about more than yourself. Well, maybe not more, but about the same.”
—Anonymous Fifteen-Year-Old Boy. As quoted in Children’s Friendships by Zick Rubin, ch. 3 (1980)
“Nature’s law says that the strong must prevent the weak from living, but only in a newspaper article or textbook can this be packaged into a comprehensible thought. In the soup of everyday life, in the mixture of minutia from which human relations are woven, it is not a law. It is a logical incongruity when both strong and weak fall victim to their mutual relations, unconsciously subservient to some unknown guiding power that stands outside of life, irrelevant to man.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)