How Things Work: TSA scanners use electromagnetic waves for detection
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855
How Things Work: TSA scanners use electromagnetic waves for detection
#3
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 130
Propaganda aside, is science education in America so horrible that your average person doesn't understand that X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation? This is basic physics, here. I can understand people not knowing what "millimeter wave" is, but X-rays? Come on!
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 855

TSA procedures are particularly recommended for those kewpies who are into...err, well now, how do we put this? Ah yes: "discipline".
Gotta go folks. Clearly I'm giddy with coffee, and beginning to explore my "obnoxious" side. I better leave before I'm banned!
#6
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Houston, Texas
Posts: 959
#7
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: in the sky
Posts: 490
Plastic (plastique?), wires and small motors?? I imagine that combination of elements could look scary on an X-ray.
My son outgrew the collection and I just found out my nephew is a Legos freak.
#8

Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 6,964
The main point that critics of this technology like to raise is that such a device is an invasion of peoples privacy; the scanners can show people without their clothes, information some people feel uncomfortable sharing
#9
FlyerTalk Evangelist




Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Northeast Kansas | Colorado Native
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The new scanners, officially called the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT), purport to make the jobs of the TSA employees easier by revealing if the person being scanned has any potentially dangerous objects concealed on their person.
#10
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
Speaking of Legos... I'm trying to figure out how to ship a childhood collection of Legos (robotics Legos included) to a young nephew near DEN without causing a terminal dump somewhere (assuming cargo is screened).
Plastic (plastique?), wires and small motors?? I imagine that combination of elements could look scary on an X-ray.
My son outgrew the collection and I just found out my nephew is a Legos freak.
Plastic (plastique?), wires and small motors?? I imagine that combination of elements could look scary on an X-ray.
My son outgrew the collection and I just found out my nephew is a Legos freak.

#12
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: in the sky
Posts: 490

Thanks for the advice. It'd be a big box (the kid did well on Holidays). I wonder if I can specify "ground" transport and not have to worry about causing an incident?

