what X-rays of my teeth at the dentist show and why it has to be radioactive and what the heavy apron does
In: Physics
The vest contains lead, which is one of the densest metals. Being dense, it has the ability to stop the X-rays from penetrating too far into it. So it provides shielding to protect your internal organs from the radiation.
The radiation is the X-rays themselves. X-rays are just very high-energy photons: the same particles that make up UV, visible light, infrared, and radio waves. But unlike those other forms of light, X-rays have high enough energy to penetrate through most of your body. Again, they usually don’t get stopped until they encounter something dense, like bone. If you want to image bone, you need to use something that isn’t blocked by the soft tissues in your body, and can pass right through to the bone. That’s also why raw X-ray images look like negatives. All the area with bone is dark (because it blocks the rays) and all the area with no bone is bright.
X-rays themselves aren’t “radioactive” per se, but they are what’s called ionizing radiation: they have enough energy to knock electrons off atoms. This can cause mutations to your cells that make you sick. It can also turn the atoms in your body into radioactive ones: unstable ones that decay (break up) into other types of atoms. That’s why we use the shielding to limit X-ray exposure to certain areas, and also limit the total amount of X-ray exposure per year.
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