Category: Radiation

Most acrylic plastics will allow light of wavelength greater than 375 nm to pass through the material, but they will not allow UV-C wavelengths (100–290 nm) to pass through. Even…

Hisashi Ouchi was helping a colleague pour litres of uranium into a huge metal vat at the Tokaimura Nuclear Power Plant in 1999. However, due to a miscalculation, the liquid…

Introduction. Phonophobia is defined as a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of sound. Often, these are normal environmental sounds (e.g., traffic, kitchen sounds, doors closing, or even loud speech) that…

Listen to pronunciation. (I-uh-NY-zing RAY-dee-AY-shun) A type of high-energy radiation that has enough energy to remove an electron (negative particle) from an atom or molecule, causing it to become ionized.…

when photons are directed at metals their energy is used to excite electrons into unoccupied states. Thus metals are opaque to the visible light. Metals are however, transparent to high…

A type of external radiation therapy that uses a special machine to make invisible, high-energy particles (protons or helium ions) that kill cancer cells. This type of radiation may cause…

Electromagnetic radiation is an electric and magnetic disturbance traveling through space at the speed of light (2.998 × 108 m/s). Which radiation travels at 1/10 the speed of light? Alpha…

In the US, devices such as self-luminous exit signs, gauges, wristwatches, etc. that contain small amounts of tritium are under the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and are subject…

Neutron radiation protection relies on radiation shielding. Due to the high kinetic energy of neutrons, this radiation is considered the most severe and dangerous radiation to the whole body when…

The radiation dose rate at typical commercial airline flight altitude (35,000 feet) is about 0.003 millisieverts per hour. (As I explain in my book “Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,”…