I’m watching Chernobyl and it said something along the line of “an atom Unanium is an bullet”. So is it like waves of atom that travel across like an explosion?
If so then why is the land is uninhabitable if the waves of atom already passed it?
Thank you
In: Physics
I’ve seen everybody try but I’ll try to make it simpler.
Radiation is essentially invisible light, very destructive invisible light. It goes through you and damages your cells. Radiation comes in the form for simplicity as an Alpha particle, a Beta particle or as a gamma ray / xray.
Radiation is emitted by radioactive isotopes (or electrically generated by an xray tube). Some isotopes have a half life of a few seconds while some like uranium will continue to emit radiation long after the human race has been wiped out.
Typically radioactive isotopes are shielded or contained in shielding which limit exposure by only allowing gamma rays to escape and even then they are shielded to prevent most gamma rays from being a problem. The real trouble comes from inhaling or ingesting radioactive isotopes that have becomes atomized by some means like an explosion or whatever. This now allows alpha and beta particles to be released, with the alpha particle being something like 20x more destructive then it’s gamma counter part. These radioactive particles in conjunction with the atomized isotope will then continue to irradiate you until they have been expelled by your body, or until you die.
The best and only defenses against radiation are distance, and shielding.
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