You don't have a background in nuclear spectroscopy, and I claim my £5. The irony of this: what is typically used for nuclear spectroscopy? Semiconductor det

You don't have a background in nuclear spectroscopy, and I claim my £5. The irony of this: what is typically used for nuclear spectroscopy? Semiconductor detectors? If you get one out -- albeit probably a geranium^Wgermanium detector rather than silicon, if you do gamma rays -- potassium-40 products stand out in a typical environment. (I've mostly done that over sandstone -- why the lab was there; it may be different somewhere like Edinburgh.) Concentrated in a calibration source rather than a concrete block, it would be controlled.