SanahGrat
Tenderfoot
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Say I have a 20g iron nail in my pocket, and this is right around the threshold of a metal detector in a security line. Would it matter if I ran through the detector at top speed or walked through the detector slowly?
In my mind there are two considerations. One, running through may give the detector a short enough signal that the software filters it out as an anomaly (here I'm talking about speeds attainable by humans, I'm not trying to say that the piece of metal is going so fast that it exceeds the sampling rate of the detector, just that there are software controls to exclude false positives but in this case they would be filtering out a true positive.)
Second, going through faster actually will generate a larger signal (like a magnet passing through a coil more quickly generates a larger current), so it's the person who walks through very slowly that is not detected.
I am asking these questions with little understanding of the engineering or physics behind metal detectors, and was hoping you all could provide some insight.
In my mind there are two considerations. One, running through may give the detector a short enough signal that the software filters it out as an anomaly (here I'm talking about speeds attainable by humans, I'm not trying to say that the piece of metal is going so fast that it exceeds the sampling rate of the detector, just that there are software controls to exclude false positives but in this case they would be filtering out a true positive.)
Second, going through faster actually will generate a larger signal (like a magnet passing through a coil more quickly generates a larger current), so it's the person who walks through very slowly that is not detected.
I am asking these questions with little understanding of the engineering or physics behind metal detectors, and was hoping you all could provide some insight.