Knowledge and Culture Behind the Dosimetry System: Japanese Scientists, Radioactive Disasters and the Technologies for Measuring Radioactivity in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Since its discovery, radiation has been visualized, generated, measured and controlled by various devices and instruments such as radiation detectors, particle accelerators and radiation therapy machines. Alongside the use of these devices and instruments, there have been varying attempts to determine the permissible dose of radiation. Nevertheless, the dosimetry system, which is the calculation of the absorbed dose in tissue resulting from exposure to ionizing radiation, was only established after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where a huge number of citizens were killed and injured. Since then, American and Japanese scientists have collected data from atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha) and tried to classify the absorbed dose of radiation. Different dosimetry systems have been introduced, such as T65D, DS86 and DS02, based on and shaped by the underlying instruments and technology. This leads to the question of how these dosimetry systems were actually established and standardized, and how Japanese and American scientists collaborated in their establishment. The chapter approaches the process of knowledge production on ionizing radiation and its generation from an historical perspective, and discusses the politics and culture behind the instruments and technologies.