Radiation!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Question

How dangerous is radiation?
Anyone who experienced something terrible related to radiation?

Answer 1

You probably mean ionizing radiation. It is radiation emited by X-ray machines & by radioactive substances.

Most dangerous is medical X-ray. It represents much more radiation burden than all other man-made sources of radiation.

The main danger is that radiation may induce cancer. Chance (probability) to develop cancer increases with higher amount of radiation.

The amout of radiation for the same X-ray examination vary from country to country and even from hospital to hospital. Modern sofisticated X-ray machines work with much less radiation burden to the patient and therefore are much safer than old and obsolete X-ray machines.

Another danger is the genetical risk to the offsprings of iradiated person.

Something terrible? Well, for me the most terrible event was, when I measured an unbelievably high amount of radiation next few days after the Chernobyl disaster. All the ground was covered by radioactive dust washed down by rainfall ... here, more than 1300 kilometers away from Chernobyl.

There is a lot of information about radiation risk in the internet, e. g. this one:
http://www.kem.edu/dept/radiology/Info2.htm
-

Answer 2

Radiation is all around you. Light bulbs, radio transmitters and candles all emit radiation. The dangerous kind is called ionizing radiation. Elements like uranium and plutonium emit high-speed particles that shoot tiny holes through your body. This makes you sick and can cause genetic defects when a particle hits a DNA molecule and transforms it. Uranium decays into lead over many thousands of years but some elements like strontium 90 only take decades to decay. The time it takes for half the amount to decay into something else is called the half-life.

Answer 3

You must make the distinction between Ionizing radiations and non ionizing radiations.

Non ionizing radiations are light and radio waves. they are only dangerous if their wavelength is very short (e.g. ultraviolet,...) or when the power is huge (e.g. a microwave oven)

The ionizing radiations are caused by radioactive decay (example in a nuclear reactor) and are dangerous because they cause cancer and destroy living cells (except for very low intensity: remember that many houses are build with slightly radioactive stones)

Very high ionizing radiation exposure is fatal but very rare (here is an example http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1106_scr.pdf)

Answer 4

Radiation is pretty dangerous, but radiation can also be a pretty wonderful thing for people who have cancer.