What is radiation? How is radiation created? Why is it bad to humans and living things?

What is radiation? How is radiation created? Is all radiation same? Why is it bad to humans and living things? I just watched about Chernobyl on discovery channel, but they didnt explain these things.What is radiation? How is radiation created? Why is it bad to humans and living things?
Radiation is the emission of a particle or particles as a material goes through changes at the atomic and subatomic level.



In general, radiation is bad because extremely high energy particles penetrate our cells and either destroy the cells outright or induce mutations which distrupt our body's natural balance of things.



Let's talk about UV radiation since everyone is famliar with sunburns. The light of UV rays is different from visual light, or say the light that comes from a light bulb since they are carrying higher energy packets. When the photons (think of them as massless packets of light) hit your skin, the energy has to go somewhere - it's absorbed by the skin. Too much UV intensity and too many cells will absorb too much energy, and the cells of the skin surface will be damaged as a sunburn forms.



There's also nuclear radiation but it works similarly. The radiation, which involves particles bombarding organic tissue, will destroy or disturb cells, which, at a high enough level, will cause organ failure.



I dug up a wikipedia article on nuclear radiation in case you wanted to read more about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_rad鈥?/a>



To answer your questions more specifically:



What is radiation? It is the emission of particles (alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, etc.) electromagnetic waves, and so on.



How is it created? A photon can be emitted because of electron transitions inside an atom. Other forms of radiation can be caused by the decomposition of atoms.



Is all radiation the same? No. For example, a light bulb radiates but the energy of the photons pose little thread to humans.



Why is bad for living things? Cell destruction (like firing a gun at a glass jar), or cell mutation (a liver cell forgets what its main function is).



Another thing to consider - microwaves work by radiation. The device is designed to emit radiation of a certain type so that water molecules are excited which then heats up the food.



I hope this helps!
for the most part almost everyone is right (i especially like the bit about radiation being released to "calm down" the nucleus)



however saying that there are three types of radiation is a bit misleading, gamma radiation is just high energy electromagnetic radiation.. also known as light. there is also microwave radiation, infra red radiation, and even optical light radiation, of course ultra violet radiation as well.



there are also neutrinos, these highly uninteractive particles are released by the sun by the billions but maybe one or two actually interact with the earth, but if we were close to a supernova there could be enough of them to cause us problems since they could go through any shielding whatsoever.



the radiation in chernobyl was created by uranium in the core of the reactor. when the core got too hot it melted down through the floor of the plant and into the ground water, causing the explosion of steam that was radioactive. this tainted water was then spread across the world by winds.



the vehicles used to clean up chernobyl were contaminated with radioactive water and material to the point that they were unsafe to use, these vehicles still sit near Chernobyl.



radiation causes cellular damage and can affect dna itself indeed some of the radiation symptoms can be some of the most grotesque wounds, look at pics from japan after world war 2 to see what i mean.



technically chernobyl was nothing compared to an atomic bomb though. the scary thing is that the core which is still very hot could possibly melt into some other uranium until it reaches the critical mass necessary for fission and create a nuclear explosion.



probably won't happen but you never know.What is radiation? How is radiation created? Why is it bad to humans and living things?
1. Radiation is the release of energy from a nucleus to make it stable

2. Radiation is released/created is 3 forms

Alpha: A cluster of 2 protons and 2 neutrons are thrown out from the nucleus

Beta: When a neutron turns into a proton or a electron

Gamma: A ray of energy released from the nucleus

3: Radiation is bad as it causes cancer.
hi friend

Emission and propagation and emission of energy in the form of rays or waves

There are three kinds of radiation : alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Alpha radiation is a flow of alpha particles, beta radiation is a flow of electrons, and gamma radiation is electromagnetic radiation.

radiation are harmful when any living cell exposed to them for long duration or continues exposure of radiation on living thing harmful.

since it affect genetic material and brings mutation or other skin and body disorderWhat is radiation? How is radiation created? Why is it bad to humans and living things?
Radiation poisoning, also called "radiation sickness", is a form of damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiations. The term is generally used to refer to acute problems caused by a large dosage of radiation in a short period. Many of the symptoms of radiation poisoning occur as ionizing radiation interferes with cell division. This interference allows for treatment of cancer cells; such cells are among the fastest-dividing in the body, and will be killed by a radiation dose that adjacent normal cells are likely to survive.



The clinical name for "radiation sickness" is acute radiation syndrome as described by the CDC[1][2][3][4]. A chronic radiation syndrome does exist but is very uncommon; this has been observed among workers in early radium source production sites and in the early days of the Soviet nuclear program. A short exposure can result in acute radiation syndrome; chronic radiation syndrome requires a prolonged high level of exposure.



The use of radionuclides in science and industry is strictly regulated in most countries (in the U.S. by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission). In the event of an accidental or deliberate release of radioactive material, either evacuation or sheltering in place will be the recommended measures.