Description: Radiation counting tube.

Caption: This is one of the first of the Maze type of Geiger-Muller counting tubes made with a bubble window. Early tubes were filled with an argon-alcohol mix. The mix in this tube is unknown but the anode is tungsten and the cathode is in the form of an internal aquadag coating.

Introduction: Often simply called a Geiger counter this instrument is named for the designers of the first radiation counter the German Physicists, Hans Wilhelm Geiger and Walther Muller. R. Maze discovered in 1946 that the heavy metal tube cathodes of the earlier counters could be replaced by thin glass covered with aquadag, a water-based graphite coating. This tube has an external aquadag coating.

Background: Made at Glasgow University by John Traverse Lloyd, in the Department of Natural Philosophy, in about 1947. John Lloyd invented the bubble window process for counters designed by Professor later Sir Charles Samuel Curran (1912-1998) (see GLAHM 105702 and 113018).

Historical Context: Design of the counting tube - Who: Curran, Samuel Crowe, Professor, later Sir (1912-1998) Physicist and first principal of Glasgow's Strathclyde University

Historical Context: Design of the counting tube by Curran - When: 1947

Historical Context: Design of the counting tube by Curran, Kelvin Building, University of Glasgow - Where: University Avenue, Glasgow, Scotland

Historical Context: Invention - When: 1947 - Who: Lloyd, John (Jack) Travers (fl.1948-1981)

Historical Context: Invention of the gas proportional radiation counting tube by Geiger and Muller - When: 1928

Historical Context: Invention of the gas proportional radiation counting tube by Geiger and Muller, Keil University - Where: Germany

Historical Context: Invention of the proportional gas radiation counter - Who: Muller, Walter, Professor - Who: Geiger, Hans Wilhelm, Professor (1882-1945)

Historical Context: Invention, Kelvin Building, University of Glasgow - Where: University Avenue, Glasgow, Scotland

Historical Context: Manufacture - When: 1947 - Who: Lloyd, John (Jack) Travers (fl.1948-1981)

Historical Context: Manufacture, Kelvin Building, University of Glasgow - Where: University Avenue, Glasgow, Scotland

Historical Context: Use of aquadag as a cathode by Maze - When: 1946 - Where: France

Historical Context: Use of auadag as a cathode - Who: Professor Roland Maze French Physicist who discovered cosmic rays in 1938