Is nuclear radiation different from other radiation such as electromagnetic that causes it to be harmful?

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Everyone knows nuclear radiation is harmful when exceeding a certain limit. Is it different from other forms of radiation such as electromagnetic radiation from electronic devices? Like if I got blasted with some sort of super WiFi would I be harmed in the same way as nuclear radiation?

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What people mean by “nuclear radiation” is usually “ionizing radiation” — radiation that has enough energy to knock electrons off of atoms, which changes their chemistry. Changing chemistry in cells can kill them, or — if you’re very unlucky — change their DNA (which is biological information stored with chemistry) in a way that causes the cell to become cancerous.

For electromagnetic radiation, whether it is ionizing or not depends on its frequency. [Here’s a simple diagram that illustrates the frequency spectrum of electromagnetic radiation](https://cdn.britannica.com/75/95275-050-5FC96002/Radio-waves-rays-light-gamma-ultraviolet-electromagnetic.jpg). Radiation that passes through walls and matter easily is on the low-end of the spectrum. WiFi, cell phones, and microwaves are all sort of in the same part of the spectrum. It is not ionizing. That does not mean it can’t have biological effects — microwaves certainly can! — but they don’t ionize.

Ionizing radiation starts pretty much after the ultraviolet, with what we call X-rays and gamma rays.

As others have noted there are other kinds of ionizing radiation beyond electromagnetic radiation. But to answer your question, WiFi, no matter how powerful, will never be ionizing radiation — _the definition of WiFi is of a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation, and by definition that frequency is non-ionizing._ That does not mean that there couldn’t ever be harm from something like WiFi; microwave radiation does have biological implications (you wouldn’t want to be put inside a microwave oven), but it is not the same category of problems as ionizing radiation.

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