NOTE: This site was shut down due to Twitter API pricing changes. You can still view an archived version that shows the last 45 minutes of Twitter data before deactivation. A behind-the-scenes blog post (in Spanish) is available here.
This online Geiger counter was an artistic side project by Guido Fioravantti @engineerGuido and Carlos Sánchez @chocotuits. The purpose of the site was to imagine what a "Global Geiger Counter" would look like, and how it could detect potential nuclear incidents before they were reported by traditional media sources. We believed that in the event of a nuclear incident, local residents would spread the news on Twitter first.
To achieve this, the site constantly scanned Twitter for tweets containing the term "nuclear". If you saw a low radiation reading, it could have been related to discussions about nuclear energy or plants, which was considered background radiation. However, if a real nuclear incident had occurred, we expected the radiation reading to be extremely high.
Please note that there was a possibility for false positives, so there was no need to panic if you saw a high reading. We would have only known the true effectiveness of our Geiger counter in the event of a real nuclear incident.
The idea for this site came to us while watching the 1959 film On The Beach. The movie depicts a group of Australians waiting for the end of the world after a global nuclear war. You may have come across some references to the movie while using the site.