Following a brief historical introduction, a novel method for inducing and measuring cosmic ray showers using a low-cost microcomputer-based laboratory system is described. This reproduction of Bruno Rossi’s classic experiment uses low counting-rate radiation monitors. The advantage of this is that a simple AND gate can be used to trigger coincidences, which makes the workings of the experiment completely transparent to undergraduate students. The disadvantage is that data must be taken for many days to get reasonably accurate results. A simple theory is presented that models the resulting shower curve quite well.

Jackson, David P., and Matthew T. Welker. Measuring and Modeling Cosmic Ray Showers with an MBL System: An Undergraduate Project. American Journal of Physics 69, no. 8 (2001): 896–900. https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.1370236

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