The Physics of Science Fiction: Radiation Part 2

[tjmac7]

So radioactivity is driving evolution!

[jonservo]

people making negative comments about dangerous radiation need to calm down. SpreadingtheMuse never denies that there is dangerous radiation. the point of this video is to show that hollywood and tv have demonized something normal and natural. its akin to them spending 50 years telling everyone how dangerous and evil water is because too much can drown you. in fact im sure more people in mankinds entire history have been killed by water than radiation.

[aarontaylor94]

you should take a crack at the probability of zombies

[gethsoftware]

truth is far more intresting then the holywood movies.

[gethsoftware]

awsome stuff. radiation is very intresting. they shuld show this in a school.

[AMRiYcad]

Can't radiation cause cancer in real life? Isn't there such a thing as radiation poisening?

P.S. Thanks for educating me to b-movie sci-fi themes - I had no clue these kinds of movies about radio-active zombies existed before I watched this. ^^ major LOL.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@AMRiYcad

Yes you can get radiation poisoning. But not the way TV says you get it: by having b-movie actresses yell "AUGHGH RADIATION!" as loud as they can in a crowded room (a la CHUD, which as far as radioactive zombie movies go, is actually pretty good).

[AMRiYcad]

@SpreadingtheMuse Thanks

[Specter5053]

so if i am absorbing radiation, am i not also radiating it at the same time?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@Specter5053

You're referring to the Blackbody laws? Thats not exactly what they were referring to, but yes. All atoms are in a constant state of absorbing and emitting radiation depending on heat and cold

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@GUARDIANtrooper

I'm not claiming "righteous," I'm claiming RIGHT. I do the work, I put in the time. I have what you never will. Direct first hand experience. I ask you questions to prove your ignorance, and you've proven everything. ;)

You've never worked in this job a day in your life and you're dumb enough to think cut and pasting a dork talking point makes you an expert? Please dont tell me you're that naive.

This thread isnt for newb harassment. Give me a reason not to block you.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@GUARDIANtrooper

If you KNEW "Japan" you would have said Japan. You didnt. You got caught cut and pasting something you didnt have a newb clue about. Besides my movie is about NATURAL radiation. It doenst talk about reactors nor does it claim to. Meanwhile I cant find a single recorded death in Japan due to the reactor accident. Radiation does not hide under your bed and strike like a boogeyman. Safety procedures can and do protect. I work in contamination areas every day.

[gorn9146]

@SpreadingtheMuse You work incontamination areas everyday!? What exactly do you do for a living?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@gorn9146

Bounce between a couple of places. Theres an old dump of nuclear waste from the 50's and 60's that I'm cleaning up, and there's a processing plant for current nuke waste. I need to enter both places in heavy gas mask protection.

[nakazatoGTR]

@SpreadingtheMuse

see and this guy aint dead yet!

not only hollywood but please you must include activist groups too.

they peddle 75% correct info but with added 25% propaganda intimidation too.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@gorn9146

The job title is Radiological Control Technician

[gorn9146]

@SpreadingtheMuse Oh, cool. Ever consider e-mailing Mike Rowe on "Dirty Jobs"? Sounds like your job is about as nasty as it gets.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@gorn9146 There's an idea. Except any video camera that goes in there wont come out again. Too much contam ;)  He'd need a remote feed.

[Craynak]

I really wish people would learn to teach the right way, and not scare others with words like radiation. Then again, 90% of earth's population care bout money, war, and sex, not learning.

Edit: So, if the human body can safely absorb 450,000 millirads, how much do nuclear explosions create after the dust settles and a nuclear winter is "supposed" to happen?

[Craynak]

I really wish people would learn to teach the right way, and not scare others with words like radiation. Then again, 90% of earth's population care bout money, war, and sex, not learning.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@NASAHOAX

It is FOUR Sv and I already dared you to prove that wrong. I see no links to rad manuals do I? DOE webpages? OSHA quotes? You're really that incompetent with google?

DR is a BLUFFER. He's admitted to never even holding a Gieger counter in his whole life. I was using one yesterday. Explain again why you're gullible enough to believe him? ;)

I work in radiation. You dont. Listen to the adults, not the newbs.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@NASAHOAX

deadly radiation is an idiot. Any dufus can read any rad manual and see that deadly exposure is 400 REM.

Thats FOUR Sv, not one. Disagree? LINK the rad manual. ANY rad manual. I dare you.

"dose rates" ARE NOT FATAL. "Exposure" is fatal. Your moronic friend still doenst get that. He's cut and pasting big words he doenst understand and making a newb idiot of himself. For gullibly believing him, you're just as dumb. I WORK in radiation everyday. Dont pretend to know anything.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@SpreadingtheMuse

BTW, I'll block you for the same reason I blocked screwball if you dont wise up. Neither one of you has a days experience in radiation, and neither one of you has the maturity of a 3rd grader. This is an educational film and I dont have to put up with one word of juvenile behavior from you or anyone.

If you're going to pretend to be smart, pretend to answer this: WHAT is the difference between dose rate and exposure? I learned that first week of Rad Class. You?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@deadlyradiation

1Sv/hr is a DOSE RATE, not an exposure. And 1sv (100 Rem) isnt fatal by half.

Deleted and blocked. ;)

[PetiteOzma]

well I enjoyed this video and I'm all for discussing this show but at least on Star Trek which you showed they do talk about normal background radiation, they never say the radiation is gone just that it's dropped back to acceptable levels. I don't think science fiction authors intend to spread fear other then supsense while the show is being watched

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@PetiteOzma

Suspense is an honorable writing goal I suppose, is just that sometimes they bring up "radiation" just to have a big scary word. Look at the TNG eps that divided up into A and B stories (I hated those), Radiation was usually some part of the B story.

[shippem]

Is 450,000 in one life time?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@shippem

All at once. If you get 250,000 now, and another 250,000 in 20 years, you'll likely be OK

[shippem]

@SpreadingtheMuse okay so what about the people in japan right now?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@shippem

Reactor radiation is manmade, not normal, so thats a whole different problem than what this movie talks about.

[shippem]

@SpreadingtheMuse True but isn't a lot of the media fear you're talking about related to specifically man-made radiation?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@shippem

I'm not entirely sure that the media even knows the difference. Any radiation is "bad" as far as they know. Listen to what they're saying in Japan: "The radiation level is 10000 times the normal level!!! We're all going to die!!!"

The "normal" level is ZILCH!!!!!! A millionth of a REM if that. 10000 times zip is zip.

[walterscientist]

Great video, though I think you should have found a moment to mention the role of nuclear fear in cold war balance of terror (ie. nuclear weapons as deterrent are worthless if no-one fears them) and the major difference between short-term danger from ionizing radiation and long-term danger from radioactive heavy particles.

[THEHUNGRYRUSSIAN]

is altitude sickness related to radiation from space, even if ur 1 of 10 ppl, u might eat too much, + u still have man made to worry about

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@THEHUNGRYRUSSIAN

Altitude sickness is due to low pressure of the atmosphere, and not enough oxygen, both of which make you queasy. Man Made radiation such as a bomb would definitely cause more sickness, but its not as if that happens everyday. But it certainly wont turn you into a zombie.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@2682nscovell

Yes, as many people died in the days and weeks afterward as died on the day itself. Radiation poisoning and such. The lethal levels of that are a whole other movie, with this one just talking about natural sources.

[Sacredor]

I really like your videos, but this was awful, 90% was you talking about how pissed off you are with Hollywood's portrayal of radiation. and 10% was actual facts ABOUT radiation. I watch your videos to learn, not to listen to you rant on the same topic over and over and over.

I got to the point where I was exclaiming, "OK I GET IT! You're pissed off, please move onto telling me what radiation DOES do" You could have done this in one video if you hadn't just ranted and ranted cyclically.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@Sacredor

Hollywood is the largest peddler of misinformation and always have been. They've spread it on multiple areas and multiple topics.  A mere "Hollywood is wrong" doesnt come anywhere near fixing all that. Besides, I take issue with the "10%." In here you learn about Natural radiation sources, the strength of those sources, how to block them, and how much radiation is fatal. That was a lot to squeeze into 7 min.

[Rebuilder11]

Awesome!! X Rays party at my house!!!

[Sorrow612]

While I have liked the starship documents, this one looks like a one big strawman against the Hollywood. Especially when all the talk about radiations not being scary with nuclear explosions in the background.

Hollywood movies and general fear of radiation are about extreme radiation, not about normal background radiation.

Also, it was pretty non-conclusive.

[brizihe]

we all radiate black body radiation anyways. so we are technically radioactive.

[LouistheHedgehog]

You act like radiation has never caused any problems. What about the aftermath of Heroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@LouistheHedgehog

NORMAL radiation never caused any problems. Hiroshima and such were hardly normal and exceptions in the extreme, shooting out hundreds of thousands of REM in direct attacks specifically for that purpose. But just walking around minding your own business? Never. Radiation doesnt come out and get you out of nowhere.

[TheSpelldoctor]

Thanks Muse...KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE. Corny,but true :)

[nabuchiznasar]

yes it is true all suns radiate, but on earth we have a magnetosphere that shields us otherwise life could not start let alone evolve..

[chockn]

you do know what is realy ignorant? :) not knowing that even small doses of radiation can cause serious illness

in normal circumstances you will not come in contact with high enough radiation to kill you or even harm you, but never forget that our world is far from normal after wars with usage of depleted uranium, nuclear bomb tests and reactors that go wrong :)

even working with radio equipment can cause serious longterm healthproblems.

dont make people underestimate the dangers

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@chockn

Radiation "can" is not the same as saying "Radiation absolutely WILL." There's a hundred determining factors in what makes you sick: amount of radiation, the type, the area of body exposed, is it recurring exposure or merely one shot? etc etc etc And even after all of that, there's no guarantee at all that you'll get so much as a headache.

At the moment, the pendulum of misinformation is in the other direction, of panic and paranoia, so thats what I wanted to counter here.

[chockn]

@SpreadingtheMuse i found your clips quite entertaining. i would have loved to see them in a litle bit higher quality. just to say this beforehand :)

what you just said is very true - and i would have liked it if you had said that in the video aswell. while you try to counter the "holywood radiation phantasies", you do take up a position that leads others to believe radiation is an awesome thing that you should be looking for :)

i hope you can understand my point. sorry for my bad english

[nabuchiznasar]

@chockn natural radioation such as that that bombards us from the sun and earths magnetospheres are normal, they are not harmfull, however human made ones are usually fatal to genes and chromosomes, gama ray bursts also would be lethal to all living things how ever most starts within our milky way for example and the nearest ones to us are not massive enough to cause a supernova or gama ray burst...in most cases even high doses for non prolonged periods are not lethal, just ask nasas astronauts.

[AstralDragoon]

@chockn The world isn't anywhere close to being dangerously contaminated by radioactive material (don't believe the environmentalists). Aside from Cherynobl, I've never heard of a reactor releasing any significant radiation. Most people have never been anywhere near an area where a nuke was tested, and any fallout would have been gone years ago. Human exposure would be more likely in the case of the bullets, but it should still be fairly isolated in terms of frequency.

[chockn]

@AstralDragoon actualy you are pretty damn wrong about that point. but then again you dont usualy hear about the longterm effects on humans in the areas where radiation is actualy a problem. of course it is man-made, but that doesnt make it nonexistent.

i have actualy been to the grand canyon last year after i left the army. we wanted to huke a pretty long distance over 2 weeks and we actualy werent allowed to drink the water in certain areas. turns out there was an old uranium mine ;)

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@chockn

Well uranium mines arent the kind of thing you find in every backyard...

[JheakrynaKyAlur]

@chockn

and we weren't allowed to play in the backyard, or in the sandbox, or in the woods after the chernobyl explosion.

well i did anyways, and i haven't got a third arm or something like that.

Radiation CAN cause many problems, that's for sure.

If you are living over a longer period on the explosion site of an A-bomb, but then again it's just mathmatics.

[JheakrynaKyAlur]

time * rad -> that matters there.

small time, high rad = bad

small rad, big time = also bad

small time, in small rad = not too good, but not that horrifying

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@JheakrynaKyAlur

Cherobyl was more of an uptake problem than a dose rate problem. They were protecting you from heavy elements floating through the wind.

With dose rate, you're right, its about time. A factor TV seldom brings up. To hear them tell it, all you have to do is spend one millisecond in any radiation and you drop dead instantaneously.

[JheakrynaKyAlur]

@SpreadingtheMuse

of course i wanted to express, that overreactions to 'radiation' don't fit with reality ;)

there was a panic like behavior back in 1986 here in germany, coz of that NPP in ukraine. -ok i've been 6 years old back then, but hey, we were told not to do x y and z, but we did anyways, and well - wasn't that bad ;D

ok, the real 'heavy' radioactive elements that came down ner that NPP have of course an unhealthy / deadly effect.

but it's not that ppl should stop thinking for

[JheakrynaKyAlur]

themselves.

[nilbud]

@AstralDragoon You're really ignorant and yet you feel your emotions about physics are worth something. You should have spent a bit more time hitting the books and a bit less time pretending you were adequate.

[robomanus]

This is nuts. Radiation is harmless? Give me a break!

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@robomanus

Did the word "harmless" ever escape my lips? What are you talking about?

[robomanus]

@SpreadingtheMuse

It is common knowledge that we get small doses of radiation from the food and air and that is not something we are afraid of. But would you explain how dangerous it can get when it comes to catastrophes in nuclear power plants and atom bombs.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@robomanus

An atom bomb would likely kill you from the heat or blast, not the radiation. But if you're talking about after-effects, thats of course many million mrem, spread out and dissipating according to Inverse/Square. But it depends on the type of bomb, if it was underground or not, and few other things.

What it WONT do, is turn you into a zombie. I hope we can agree on that.

[jonservo]

i was curious about the absorbed radiation levels you discuss in the video. unlike some of the posters here i have friends from chernobyl that came to the u.s. after the plant accident. they all have health problems, and look much older than they actually are, but other than that are still kicking as it were. at what levels does absorbed radiation become dangerous but not fatal. and what about the radiation is actually dangerous? is it the physical bombardment against our cells?

[paulspydar]

great! radiation is harmless someone better tell the hospitals not to worry about sterilizing patients at xray,& that tumors will not respond to treatment & tell the military that there weapons wont work, but the up side is neither will the enemys,&while your at go into chernoble with a plastic suit & bucket & clean up the reactor oh & if leaving orbit dont worry about any solor storms/winds there harmless too & the earths magnetic fields protecting us is not needed & Madame Curie died from flu!

[SpreadingtheMuse]

If plastic DOESNT stop alpha radiation, then someone better tell the dozens of nuke plants around the world that all their workers really arent alive, they're dead, dead because the alpha radiation they thought they stopped really killed them all off a decade ago.

So all these nuke workers you see everyday, are they dead or alive? ;)

The thing is, you likely DONT see any nuke workers, and get all your facts from hearsay guesses born of the very cliche I ridicule in this movie. Good luck ;)

[SpreadingtheMuse]

So what we have here is that you fell for exactly the fear-mongering ignorant lies I told you not to fall for.

Chernobyl? Solar Flare? Big scary words you heard on TV. Both cut and pasted with no quantitative numbers or values of any kind. But you heard them on TV!!!! Therefore they HAVE to be deadly! ;)

So on one side you have the televised lies of amateurs, and on the other you have an actual radiation tech right here. Why dont you explain which one is the more accurate source ;)

[paulspydar]

telling everyone that will listen that radiation is fins and harmless? you are as pig headed or worse than the conspiricy nuts, I have said more than once I am looking for answers from different sources & have looked elsewhere

[paulspydar]

there is no point debateing with you as you just cherry pick what you wish to answer , and have also appointed yourself as the big brain on rye, are you really saying that chernobal is safe? then why is it encased in feet thick concrete ? why were the workers at the time restricted to a few miniutes each in the clean up? why are most of them now dead? why are the children born since in the area sick? and have high rates of cancers , leukemia? why are you the worlds expert on everything?

[jonservo]

@SpreadingtheMuse just wondering when you speak about the dangerous levels of absorbed radiation in the video is that referring to the deadly dose only, at what point do the levels become harmful. as opposed to many posting comments here i actually have friends from chernobyl that came here after the plant meltdown. they all have health problems, and look much older than they actuallty are, but are still kicking as it were and i was curious as to how much they may have absorbed.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@jonservo

The Chernobyl levels are online somewhere, but what you're asking about is the difference between acute dose and long term. 450,000 would kill you if it hit you all at once, but if it was spread out over a while it would just be sickening, as evidenced by your friends. They likely absorbed hundreds of thousands of mrem. Now that I'm curious, I might go look up what the actual readings were.

[Surhotchaperchlorome]

@paulspydar

Depends on the dose of it, dude.

[AstralDragoon]

The most disgraceful aspect of this radiation propaganda is that the press uses it to fuel the sensationalism responsible for public fear of nuclear power. It would be great for alternative energy if people didn't act like the power plants would go off like 10-kilos in an accident.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

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(ig33ku 1 week ago)

FEEEED MY BRAIN..........

[ThatsMrFrank]

"....it is...already ......EVERYWHERE!"  hehe, fear in the uneducated XD