It isn’t, but as Thetimefarm above says, the paper trail is what matters. Medical grade liquid helium for MRI machines is a thing. That paper trail is what adds a few zeros to the cost.
As a side note, this is similar to why Fluke multimeters are so expensive:
tl;dw: companies have reams of documents for their certification procedures of equipment, and calibration of the equipment to certify the equipment, and they’re based around the specifics of Fluke mutimeters. They aren’t more accurate or even much fancier than a nice hobbyist meter. Those companies must buy Fluke or completely redo all their procedures with accompanying documentation and certifying by professional engineers. If you’re not such a company, don’t bother spending all that extra money on Fluke.
Yeah, it’s weird. Like yes, all these people put in a lot of effort to make sure that when people could die from equipment failure, we make sure that equipment is very, very good. Adding zeros to the price is the cost of that.
Lemmy has a very strong libertarian slant and I think that a lot of people have this perspective that all costs are unreasonably inflated for stuff like this. They can’t see how it could be useful to have standards.
$1,143 for 510 grams of Peanut Butter. $734 for 25 grams of Portland Cement. $1,107 for 100 grams of “Infant/Adult Nutritional Formula I (milk-based)”.
Is the US government ripping people off? No. It’s because when you get one, it is guaranteed to be the standard for whatever it says on the package, and it’s been made that way to exacting levels of detail. Unless you’re a laboratory using these materials, you don’t need to bother NIST with your grocery list.
Personally, I love this shit. It takes a whole lot of effort to make something to such standards. Doubly so when it’s not just one thing, but a combination of many smaller things that each has to be individually verified to work as part of a whole.
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is less pure than research grade or grade-6. That’s 99% vs 99.9999%.
Medical grade might be used for inhalation by patients and traces of other air is perfectly acceptable. MRI cryocoolers need more purity to keep the magnet cold.
I presume that it has to be certified and probably heavily filtered. It’s not going to be the same as what goes into party balloons.
Liquid helium is -269 °C. There is no risk of confusing it with what’s in balloons.
And its a medical setting which means that the products you use will be certified and calibrated in just the right way.
deleted by creator
It isn’t, but as Thetimefarm above says, the paper trail is what matters. Medical grade liquid helium for MRI machines is a thing. That paper trail is what adds a few zeros to the cost.
As a side note, this is similar to why Fluke multimeters are so expensive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay9wFQAW19Y
tl;dw: companies have reams of documents for their certification procedures of equipment, and calibration of the equipment to certify the equipment, and they’re based around the specifics of Fluke mutimeters. They aren’t more accurate or even much fancier than a nice hobbyist meter. Those companies must buy Fluke or completely redo all their procedures with accompanying documentation and certifying by professional engineers. If you’re not such a company, don’t bother spending all that extra money on Fluke.
Amazingly people hate this concept, and it’s strange. We all got downvoted for pointing this out.
Yeah, it’s weird. Like yes, all these people put in a lot of effort to make sure that when people could die from equipment failure, we make sure that equipment is very, very good. Adding zeros to the price is the cost of that.
Lemmy has a very strong libertarian slant and I think that a lot of people have this perspective that all costs are unreasonably inflated for stuff like this. They can’t see how it could be useful to have standards.
To them, I’d point out the NIST warehouse of standardized materials:
https://shop.nist.gov/
$1,143 for 510 grams of Peanut Butter. $734 for 25 grams of Portland Cement. $1,107 for 100 grams of “Infant/Adult Nutritional Formula I (milk-based)”.
Is the US government ripping people off? No. It’s because when you get one, it is guaranteed to be the standard for whatever it says on the package, and it’s been made that way to exacting levels of detail. Unless you’re a laboratory using these materials, you don’t need to bother NIST with your grocery list.
Personally, I love this shit. It takes a whole lot of effort to make something to such standards. Doubly so when it’s not just one thing, but a combination of many smaller things that each has to be individually verified to work as part of a whole.
I agree with you fully. This stuff is fun.
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is less pure than research grade or grade-6. That’s 99% vs 99.9999%.
Medical grade might be used for inhalation by patients and traces of other air is perfectly acceptable. MRI cryocoolers need more purity to keep the magnet cold.
https://www.westairgases.com/blog/exploring-the-most-essential-and-underappreciated-uses-for-helium