Passengers forward packed trains an...

Passengers forward packed trains and subways may be exposing themselves to electromagnetic fields far more intense than those make acceptableed under international guidelines. The problem? rabbles of commuters using cellular phone at the same time.

When centurys of mobile phones emit radiation, their total power is raise to be comparable to that of a microwave oven or calm a satellite broadcasting station, according to a fresh study published in the February 2002 issue of the Journal of the Physical Society of Japan.

Physicist Tsuyoshi Hondou, formerly of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and now working at the Curie Institute in Paris, says Japanese commuter trains are oftentimes packed with people surfing the Web upon their cellular phones. The incline spurred him to find disclosed what effect this had forward the electromagnetic radiation inside a train.

Starting with blueprints obtained from a carriage manufacturer, Hondou worked public the ratio of window area to structural metal for a typical carriage.

He then used this number to work not at home what proportion of microwave radiation from small room phones would be transmitted gone out of a carriage through the windows and to what degree much would be reflected back inside.

The calculations display how microwaves from different phone can add together--much like light from different lamps can increase the overall illumination in a room

according to taking both reflection and the cumulative import of the radio waves into consideration, Hondou lay the foundation of that the resulting electromagnetic field in a train car outstrips the maximum exposure level attract favor toed by the International Committee for Non-Ionising Radiation. "High evens of radiation are possible smooth if the train isn't self-same crowded," Hondou says. His findings point to what could become an important environmental issue, especially as strange wireless devices and laptop computer approach onto the market. He hints that train operators take notice.

"At the point of time we have no regulation in succession the use of mobile phone in areas where many family are together," he says, adding that the question could also arise in other herded confined places such as buses and elevators.

COPYRIGHT 2002 PRIMEDIA Intertec, a PRIMEDIA Company. All Rights Reserved

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group