Can radiation be felt? If I pick up a tube containing radioactive material, would I feel the radiation coming off it in any way, or would it feel just like a regular metal tube?
In: Chemistry
You do not feel readition. There have been several people who accidentally exposed themselves to large doses of tradition and didn’t even know it.
It wasn’t until they started feeling unwell in the following days and then their body started rotting that they realized something was wrong.
Generally speaking, no. Only very extreme radiation fields (around 1000 Roentgen/hr or a lethal dose in 30 minutes) can sometimes ionize the air to an extent that a smell of ozone is created. Accidents with an X-Ray machine on the fritz also suggest that dose rates tens or hundreds of times higher than that may cause a burning sensation in the flesh. Ionizing radiation of sufficient intensity can also create a blue glow or flash in water and to a lesser extent air.
Practically speaking, though, radiation will usually kill you and you don’t even know what happened for another hour or two.
Most commonly of course, the result is a theoretical increase in cancer risk that never actually manifests at all.
Depends on the amount of radiation. At some point you will feel that its getting hot until the point where you will start burning. But for lower amounts of radiation you wont feel anything.
From my understanding, you only feel radiation at an extreme intensity, at the point where it essentially hits a lethal dose in a matter of seconds, or fraction of seconds. There was the case of the demon core, where someone basically had a sudden flash of exposure, and got a sour taste in his mouth and an intense burning sensation in his hand closest to it–but he was well in excess of a lethal dose not just in his hand.
Though, I also remember the medical scanner software mishap, where people did indeed feel intense pain when getting a dose orders of magnitude higher than expected, but once again I believe this was a short burst of high intensity.
So largely, lower-intensity (but still potentially life-threatening) sources likely wouldn’t be felt to my knowledge. I think if something took exposure over a course of days or weeks, you likely would hit radiation sickness before physical sensation?
No, not unless the dose is *extreme*. A high enough flux could cause immediate burns. Firefighters at Chernobyl noticed a metallic taste in their mouths, but that was an outrageous level of radiation.
If you had a container of some radioactive element, you wouldn’t know based on your senses. That’s why it’s so dangerous, you could be exposed and not know until you began dying.
No, we cannot perceive radiation exposure as it is happening however you may have a bitter, metallic, or salty taste in your mouth. It can take a few days before you start to experience the effects.
Yes you can feel radiation, go out in the sun and you see and feel the radiation from it that is tranferd to you body. You can hear radiation from speakers and feel it if it is powerdull enough. The radiation from a earthquake can cleary be felt.
Radiation is just emission of energy as particle or waves, the light that hit you eyes from the screen you read this on is radiation. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation)
The ionizing radiation release from radioactive decay can be felt if the power is high enough so it heat up you body. The is very large amount of radiation and it will at best just hurt you skin or at worst kill you.
Indiviual particle of alpha, beta and gamma radiation is not something you body can usuay detect. You are likely being hit by it right now. You own body will contain radioactive elemrn and release ionizing radiation ot a small degree. Potassium-40 for example make up 0.012% of all protasium in nature. You body contain around 140grams of potassium so you contain around 0.017 gram of Potassium-40. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose)
It is possible to detect individual particle of ionizing radiation. Cosmic rays can produce visible light in you eye. It is not very likely down hear on earth but realtivy common in earth orbit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_visual_phenomena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_visual_phenomena)
Somting similar was expsience by a man tha by misstke put his hed in beam of a particle generator Reportedly, he saw a flash “brighter than a thousand suns” but did not feel any pain [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski)
If the source is strong enough, you could feel metallic taste in your mouth. A not uncommon occurrence during radiotherapy.
But usually no, you can’t feel radiation directly. If item is radioactive enough, like plutonium, it may feel warm. Ironically, that warms comes from alpha radiation, which is not dangerous unless ingested, so you could hold plutonium with bare hands and be fine, but a radiography source emitting stong gamma you’d not feel anything by touch, while it could do a LOT of damage due to its penetrating properties. After a while, you’d feel a burn where you’re most affected, likely in hand holding it.
I think I read that some of the scientists who were killed by the demon core saw a flash of blue light, caused by cerenkov radiation generated in the vitreous humour in their eyes – i.e., they saw blue light because the radiation made their own eyeballs glow.
Needless to say, this is not something you can rely on to warn you of danger. If you’re seeing blue, it’s too late.
A sufficiently high dose of radiation can be tasted. It has a metallic taste kinda like pennies. But I you ever experienced that, you’re basically already dead its just a matter of time.
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