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Lesson 11b - Understanding the Basics of Radiation |
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Background Radiation Radioactivity has been a part of the environment longer than the human race. Radioactivity is what warms the interior of the earth and keeps the earth's interior molten. Radioactive decay inside the earth is what heats the water in geysers or in natural hot springs. Even the helium in a child's balloon is nothing more than alpha particles produced by radioactive decay. From the moment human beings began as a living species to the here and now of nuclear technology, humankind has learned, grown, changed, and evolved, not realizing, until very recently, that they did so in the constant presence of natural radiation. Today, although some radiation in the world does come from man-made sources, the majority of the world's population continues to be exposed to more natural radiation per year than they will receive from man-made radiation in a lifetime. |
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Anyone reading this who just thought "What's a millirem?"is not alone. The measurement scientists use to describe amounts of radiation, while extremely important to data evaluation, monitoring statistics, and and analyses of trends, are frequently unfamiliar to most people and consequently fail to convey any meaningful information to anyone outside a radiological field. Throughout this section, comparisons of different sources and activities which expose humans to radiation are provided, to demonstrate how these numbers and measurements can be evaluated. The first comparison looks at the radiation found naturally in the world. |
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