Why are Hiroshima and Nagasaki safe to live while Marie Curie’s notebook won’t be safe to handle for at least another millennium?
In: Physics
Radiation is energy that comes from certain types of particles.
Imagine finding a small pebble that is really, really hot. And the weird thing is that it stays hot, for like 1000 years. As long as you don’t touch the pebble, you won’t get hurt. But if you touch it, the heat can burn you. If you accidentally picked it up, you might get a little burnt but you would drop it. The radiation energy here is not all that dangerous as long as you don’t touch the pebble, because most forms of nuclear energy can be blocked by a small barrier. But imagine accidentally swallowing the pebble. That would burn you from the inside a lot! And you wouldn’t be able to get it out.
When you have a bomb or a nuclear accident, you end up with radioactive fallout. This is basically dust and molecules that acts like that hot pebble but smaller. The area remains dangerous because it is very easy to get that dust on or inside of you like breathing the air or drinking water with the dust in it. And also, it will get on everything. But eventually, the dust will get cleaned up, or buried, or dispersed in the ground or water or air until it is not at a harmful concentration anymore.
Marie Curies diary is still covered in this dust, and it’s all embedded in the pages and stuff. You could stand next to it and probably be okay, but you don’t want that dust to get transferred to you or to breathe it in.
Latest Answers