The Physics of Science Fiction: Radiation Part 2

Here we discuss the actual facts of Radiation, the elements Television never told you in its mad rush to scare you to death with horror and Big Scary Words. Radiation is present in nature. Radiation can be blocked, and the lethal amount of radiation is far higher than Star Trek has ever led you to believe. Using classic clips you're sure to recognize, you'll know learn whats real and whats fear-mongering nonsense.

OK, this time it was NOT my fault.
After goofing around with the sound for a while, I FINALLY found a way to kill the mono left channel sound and make it stereo (cheers). Yes I know you've been complaining about that for years, but when your camera is insistent on recording in one channel, its a hassle and a half to get it fixed. In the course of making this movie I had to download several new plug-ins, fork over money for new features, and buy a brand new DVD player (Netflix made my old one beg for mercy). So, truth be told, I was going to reupload the movie anyway with the brand new fixed sound.
HOWEVER. This is another case where I had to fix a stray factual error. And how I found out about this one will make you scream:
In part 1 I accidentally referred to "Decay" by the term "Fission" and I was immediately jumped on by every Radiological Engineer from nuke plants to the navy yards informing me of my error. Easily fixed. But in all that back and forth, there was an error in THIS part that not ONE of those guys caught. No technician or engineer anywhere noticed the mistake. Why? Because 2 weeks ago, it wasnt a mistake. 2 weeks later, it is. ;)
It has to do with Natural and Manmade radiation. The amount of millirem absorbed per year through the various sources are all well known numbers required to be known by every rad worker. The natural sources are more or less constant and easily memorized. Man-made is almost the same way. You see, since the 1980's the amount of man-made medical radiation has been the official number of 53 mr per year. I knew that, my boss knew that, my instructors knew that.
Then came last Friday. We're all in semesterly training, learning all the new procedures and so forth. Our instructor says "And now, here are the new numbers for absorbed medical radiation..."
NEW numbers?
You see they just did a NEW study. With NEW subjects. And it came up with a NEW average, to replace the 53 mr that has been the industry standard for 30 years. When was this new study released?
Not in 2008. Not last year. Not last month.
Last WEEK.
This brand new number was released to the radiological administration and trainers last WEEK. The exact same time I was uploading this movie the first time.
53 mr was right when I started uploading. And 53 mr was wrong when I was finished uploading. My movie was obsolete before it was even viewed. This is the most egregious case of victim of my own bad timing I can remember or ever want to happen again.
But, there's good luck here, kind of. I've been harping about how long this movie took to make. Well, had I made it quicker, it would have been uploaded months ago, and my out-of-date error of 53 would have been locked into eternity forever. But with only a couple weeks gone by, I can safely reupload it with almost zero impact. Lucky me ;)
Also, since this number is SOOO gosh darn new that it only filtered down to our rad trainers last week, I GET to be one of the first Radiological sources to spread it around. ;) The NEW medical radiation number you see here is STATE OF THE ART. Brand spanking new. And wont be obsolete for another 30 years, when they do the next official study. We hope. ;)
So here we go again. Same movie. New sound. New number. This had better be the end of it. I'd like to work on other things from time to time. ;)
Part 2 of Radiation. Originally uploaded May 5th. +376 views from previous upload.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• physics
• sci
• fi
• monsters
• movies
• atomic
• nuclear
• radiation
• radiological
• alien
• star
• trek
• alpha
• beta
• gamma
• isotope
• battlestar
• mutant
• zombie
• enterprise
• worf
• spreadingthemuse

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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]

@SpreadingtheMuse Thanks

[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.