Misunderstood
There are several things in science that are really misunderstood, like vaccines, microwaves, and GMOs. But one that is really misunderstood is radiation. First, what is radiation? When people talk about radiation or radioactivity, they usually talk about microwaves (which don’t cause cancer), X-rays, a green thing that glows in the dark, the Incredible Hulk, or the song by Imagine Dragons. The actual definition is the emission of high energy particles or waves. This can mean many things, but the two most common are electromagnetic waves (photons), or high energy particles released from decaying atoms. The one that I will be talking about is radioactive atoms (the green things that glow in the dark). This kind of radiation is called nuclear
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radiation and, as you could probably guess, has to do with the nucleus of the atom. If an atoms nucleus is too big pieces of it will fall off. This is called nuclear decay. There are several different ways that an atoms decay, the three most common are alpha, beta, and gamma decay. Alpha decay releases alpha particles, which can be stopped by things like paper. Beta decay releases beta particles and, to stop these, you need something a bit denser, like aluminum. Gamma decay releases gamma rays and these are hard to stop. It takes something really dense, like lead, to stop a gamma ray. There are also different units that are used to measure radiation. The three that I will be using are the rem (stands for “roentgen equivalent to man”), the millirem, and the sievert. 1 rem equals 1,000 millirem or 0.01 sieverts. An average dental X-ray is about 1.5 millirems (0.0015 rems, or 0.000015 sieverts). Now that we know the different kinds of radiation and how to measure it, let’s see if it is as dangerous as people say it is. On average, a US resident receives about 620 millirems of radiation each year. The majority of the radiation comes from the air, and people didn’t put it there, the earth did. When a radioactive particle, either an alpha or beta particle, leaves the atom, the atom changes into a different kind of atom. The new atom might still be radioactive. If it is, it will decay into a different atom and this will continue until a stable atom is reached. The first atom is the parent, the second is the daughter, the third is the granddaughter, and so on. In the earth, uranium and thorium exist in ores. After a while, they will decay into an element called radon. Radon is radioactive, but it is also a gas. Being a gas, it rises from the ground and floats around in the atmosphere. So the air and the rocks will expose you to the most radiation. Also, if your house contains any brick or stone, particularly granite, your house might contain radioactive ores and releases radon. What else exposes you to radiation? Camera lenses from between 1940 and 1970 used thorium in the lens. Uranium compounds are very colorful, so they use to paint things with uranium, like marbles to play with and plates to eat off of (don’t eat off uranium plates! Uranium is a heavy metal poison. It would be like eating off plates painted with lead or mercury paint). Uranium, being twice as dense as lead, is used as weights in some aircrafts. Then there’s other elements, like polonium which is used in some paint brushes, a radioactive type of hydrogen, called tritium, which is used on some watches that are sold today, and Americium, which is a necessary component for smoke detectors. If we are always exposed to nuclear radiation, why are some people red of it? Radiation is probably feared because of things like the radium girls, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.
The radium girls were women who painted radioactive paint on watch hands. As you can imagine, painting tiny watch hands was difficult, so, to keep their brushes thin, they would lick them getting radioactive paint on their lips and in their mouth. Later, they suffered from various health problems (those were radium watches, not the tritium watches used today. It was changed because, unlike tritium, radium decays into radon gas and is toxic to the bones). The nuclear fallout from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was gruesome and brutal. When the Chernobyl reactor melted down and caught fire, several brave men had to fight those fires. Their gear, to this day, is so radioactive that they can easily overload a geiger counter (a device that counts radioactive particles). Then there is all of this stuff about the Fukushima waste polluting the pacific ocean and contaminating the fish. Radiation can do many amazing things, but it can also be dangerous. It can cause radiation sickness and DNA mutations like cancer. What happens is that powerful radiation could be strong enough to knock electrons off of atoms. This can destroy DNA and can kill the cell. Sometimes if the right parts of DNA are broken, it could make the cell start multiplying like crazy. This is known as cancer. However the chances of a radioactive particle causing cancer are really small. If one gamma ray hit you, the chances of it causing cancer are not one in a thousand, not one in a million, but one in thirty-quadrillion (1/30,000,000,000,000,000)! The amount of radiation that you would need to receive to get a 100 percent chance of cancer is about 20 sieverts. What about radiation sickness? It will take 5 sieverts of radiation to give a person a 100 percent chance of death by radiation sickness. It takes 5 sieverts will kill a person, but 20 sieverts will cause cancer? This is how
it works. If you were exposed to 2 sieverts of radiation in 1 minuet, you would get really sick. However, if you were exposed to 2 sieverts of radiation over a longer period, like 1 year, you chances of living goes up. Its like alcohol. You should not drink a whole bottle of wine in a minute, or you will get sick, but you can drink the whole bottle over a year. But, unlike alcohol, 2 sieverts over a minuet or sieverts over a year, in both cases, you will have the same chances of getting cancer. So if you were exposed to 20 sieverts of radiation over an hour, you would die quickly. If you were exposed to 20 sieverts of radiation over a year, you would probably live, but get cancer. Ok, so how much radiation is 20 sieverts? The answer is a lot of radiation, and I mean a stupidly high amount of radiation. In fact, most devices that measure radiation use microsieverts (0.000001 sieverts) because just 1 sievert is so much radiation. Using sieverts in geiger counters would by like using tons in a kitchen scale. Stores that sell uranium ore consider ore that releases 0.0001 sieverts in an hour extremely radioactive. The average 620 millirems of annual radiation that an American is exposed to converts to 0.0062 sieverts. Multiply that by the 80 years of the average human lifespan, and you get about 4.96 sieverts. If you ate an ounce of uranium, radiation sickness would be the least of your problems. You would probably die of heavy metal poisoning. We also have examples from history showing that radiation, when treated with care, is not to harmful. Marie Curie, the woman who discovered radioactivity and worked with radioactive substances all day for the majority of her life with almost no protection, lived to be 66 years old! And she was born in 1867! Can you guess how old Mae Keane, one of the radium girls, was when she died? She was 107 years old when she died. This shows that an enormous amount of radiation is required to harm a person. Hopefully, this will help you understand radiation better. You shouldn’t be scared of radiation because you cannot hide from it. It is everywhere. Understanding things like radiation is important so that wrong facts don’t spread and become crazy ideas. Yes, there are risks when working with radiation, but there are risks in everything we do. And it is because of these reasons that I think nuclear radiation is safe.
radiation and, as you could probably guess, has to do with the nucleus of the atom. If an atoms nucleus is too big pieces of it will fall off. This is called nuclear decay. There are several different ways that an atoms decay, the three most common are alpha, beta, and gamma decay. Alpha decay releases alpha particles, which can be stopped by things like paper. Beta decay releases beta particles and, to stop these, you need something a bit denser, like aluminum. Gamma decay releases gamma rays and these are hard to stop. It takes something really dense, like lead, to stop a gamma ray. There are also different units that are used to measure radiation. The three that I will be using are the rem (stands for “roentgen equivalent to man”), the millirem, and the sievert. 1 rem equals 1,000 millirem or 0.01 sieverts. An average dental X-ray is about 1.5 millirems (0.0015 rems, or 0.000015 sieverts). Now that we know the different kinds of radiation and how to measure it, let’s see if it is as dangerous as people say it is. On average, a US resident receives about 620 millirems of radiation each year. The majority of the radiation comes from the air, and people didn’t put it there, the earth did. When a radioactive particle, either an alpha or beta particle, leaves the atom, the atom changes into a different kind of atom. The new atom might still be radioactive. If it is, it will decay into a different atom and this will continue until a stable atom is reached. The first atom is the parent, the second is the daughter, the third is the granddaughter, and so on. In the earth, uranium and thorium exist in ores. After a while, they will decay into an element called radon. Radon is radioactive, but it is also a gas. Being a gas, it rises from the ground and floats around in the atmosphere. So the air and the rocks will expose you to the most radiation. Also, if your house contains any brick or stone, particularly granite, your house might contain radioactive ores and releases radon. What else exposes you to radiation? Camera lenses from between 1940 and 1970 used thorium in the lens. Uranium compounds are very colorful, so they use to paint things with uranium, like marbles to play with and plates to eat off of (don’t eat off uranium plates! Uranium is a heavy metal poison. It would be like eating off plates painted with lead or mercury paint). Uranium, being twice as dense as lead, is used as weights in some aircrafts. Then there’s other elements, like polonium which is used in some paint brushes, a radioactive type of hydrogen, called tritium, which is used on some watches that are sold today, and Americium, which is a necessary component for smoke detectors. If we are always exposed to nuclear radiation, why are some people red of it? Radiation is probably feared because of things like the radium girls, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.
The radium girls were women who painted radioactive paint on watch hands. As you can imagine, painting tiny watch hands was difficult, so, to keep their brushes thin, they would lick them getting radioactive paint on their lips and in their mouth. Later, they suffered from various health problems (those were radium watches, not the tritium watches used today. It was changed because, unlike tritium, radium decays into radon gas and is toxic to the bones). The nuclear fallout from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was gruesome and brutal. When the Chernobyl reactor melted down and caught fire, several brave men had to fight those fires. Their gear, to this day, is so radioactive that they can easily overload a geiger counter (a device that counts radioactive particles). Then there is all of this stuff about the Fukushima waste polluting the pacific ocean and contaminating the fish. Radiation can do many amazing things, but it can also be dangerous. It can cause radiation sickness and DNA mutations like cancer. What happens is that powerful radiation could be strong enough to knock electrons off of atoms. This can destroy DNA and can kill the cell. Sometimes if the right parts of DNA are broken, it could make the cell start multiplying like crazy. This is known as cancer. However the chances of a radioactive particle causing cancer are really small. If one gamma ray hit you, the chances of it causing cancer are not one in a thousand, not one in a million, but one in thirty-quadrillion (1/30,000,000,000,000,000)! The amount of radiation that you would need to receive to get a 100 percent chance of cancer is about 20 sieverts. What about radiation sickness? It will take 5 sieverts of radiation to give a person a 100 percent chance of death by radiation sickness. It takes 5 sieverts will kill a person, but 20 sieverts will cause cancer? This is how
it works. If you were exposed to 2 sieverts of radiation in 1 minuet, you would get really sick. However, if you were exposed to 2 sieverts of radiation over a longer period, like 1 year, you chances of living goes up. Its like alcohol. You should not drink a whole bottle of wine in a minute, or you will get sick, but you can drink the whole bottle over a year. But, unlike alcohol, 2 sieverts over a minuet or sieverts over a year, in both cases, you will have the same chances of getting cancer. So if you were exposed to 20 sieverts of radiation over an hour, you would die quickly. If you were exposed to 20 sieverts of radiation over a year, you would probably live, but get cancer. Ok, so how much radiation is 20 sieverts? The answer is a lot of radiation, and I mean a stupidly high amount of radiation. In fact, most devices that measure radiation use microsieverts (0.000001 sieverts) because just 1 sievert is so much radiation. Using sieverts in geiger counters would by like using tons in a kitchen scale. Stores that sell uranium ore consider ore that releases 0.0001 sieverts in an hour extremely radioactive. The average 620 millirems of annual radiation that an American is exposed to converts to 0.0062 sieverts. Multiply that by the 80 years of the average human lifespan, and you get about 4.96 sieverts. If you ate an ounce of uranium, radiation sickness would be the least of your problems. You would probably die of heavy metal poisoning. We also have examples from history showing that radiation, when treated with care, is not to harmful. Marie Curie, the woman who discovered radioactivity and worked with radioactive substances all day for the majority of her life with almost no protection, lived to be 66 years old! And she was born in 1867! Can you guess how old Mae Keane, one of the radium girls, was when she died? She was 107 years old when she died. This shows that an enormous amount of radiation is required to harm a person. Hopefully, this will help you understand radiation better. You shouldn’t be scared of radiation because you cannot hide from it. It is everywhere. Understanding things like radiation is important so that wrong facts don’t spread and become crazy ideas. Yes, there are risks when working with radiation, but there are risks in everything we do. And it is because of these reasons that I think nuclear radiation is safe.