• Question: I have a sense that you work with some sort of radiation... my question is why does radiation not act like a normal ray of light? and also what do you do to stay safe

    Asked by 622medb55 to Samantha, Paul, Glafkos on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      I work with electromagnetic radiation – which is radio waves – and they are safe.

      Areas like nuclear medicine work with ionising radiation – for example gamma rays. To stay safe you must keep your time minimal working with radiation, try to keep a distance and also using the appropriate shielding. For example when a patient is injected you must not stand next to them for a long time (distance and time) and if you need to stay close to them (for therapy work ) use shielding like a lead wall.

    • Photo: Glafkos Havariyoun

      Glafkos Havariyoun answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Excellent question!!

      Light photons or as you said it Light rays are usually a lot less energetic than X-ray or Gamma radiation photons or rays!!

      http://www2.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/ALSTool/EMSpec/EMSpec2.html

      Take a look at the diagram in the above link.

      Light rays (UV or infrared) are all before X-rays and Gammas rays this means that are less energetic which in turn means that they will travel less distance when they are in a material.

      Now because the radiation we use is more energetic we have to protect ourselves when we use it.

      As I explained in a previous answer; when i talk to my little brother about radiation I always tell him to think about fire. What would you do if there was fire?

      1) Stay as far as you can: the further you are you feel less heat

      2) Spend as less time as you can near the fire : the less time you spend the less burns you will get basically

      3) Wear something that would protect you . Like a fire blanket but in this case a maybe a lead shield to try and stop the radiation from passing through!

    • Photo: Samantha Terry

      Samantha Terry answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      Hi, yep I do work with all kind of radiation.
      Some types of radiation do act like rays of light (photons). These are X-rays and gamma rays. To stay safe you have to minimize the radiation you are exposed to; only use as much as you need, increase the distance between you and the source as much as possible; shield yourself.
      Shielding for the gammas and x-rays include lead. Alpha particles can be shielded by skin or paper and beta particles by plastic and the rest by different thicknesses of lead or steel.
      Radiation workers also wear radiation dosimeters to measure how much activity they are exposed to.

    • Photo: Paul Booker

      Paul Booker answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      A very good question! Do you mean why doesn’t radiation reflect in glass like normal light? It’s a bit like the difference between throwing a soft ball at the window (which would hopefully bounce off or ‘reflect’) and firing a very small bullet at the window, which would go straight through and carry on like nothing happened! The radiation we use has a lot more energy than normal light so it behaves differently.

      To stay safe we use the principles of time, distance and shielding as already said, and we also monitor any radiation we do come into contact with to make sure the levels are safe.

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