The question is, "Elevated by how much?", or "Elevated to what level?"
Modern detection techniques can detect and quantify almost unbeliveably low levels of radiation.
I notice that the news media almost never give details on the actual values of any levels detected, and never put it into context, e.g., compared to what background level.
That’s the central issue I have with the reporting. I want to know Bq/m^2 or Bq/l for water, and then I want a pre-March 11 reading as well. I want to know the radionuclide for which there is a reading, the background levels, the trend of samples over time, etc. The Japanese have some of this data, and it puzzles me why they’re so disorganized in presenting it.
Giving me a number out of a vacuum of comparative data makes me say “Hmmm, OK. That’s interesting.” I just can’t get excited unless I have something to which I can compare - and that’s true of most everything. Numbers in a vacuum are just cocktail party factoids, they’re not worthy of too much action.
This is part of what I depend on in investing. We can say that “Company X has a low PE ratio, therefore it is a screaming buy, buy, buy!” until we look at all companies in that sector, then we see that they all have low PE ratios, and what is more, they’ve always been low. In other words, the bigger comparative data picture tells us to not expect a PE expansion any time soon... and so on.
There’s tons of applications of math in real life, and the brutal truth is that the people that go into journalism show us the best possible evidence that without mathematical critical thinking, it is possible to have a master of arts degree and still be every bit as suspicious and open to irrational behavior as the early cavemen, who listened to some shaman during a lunar eclipse as he said “The evil Night Wolf has swallowed up the Moon Princess - give me hides and your daughters so that I can make him spit her out!”