So much for Un-clear Experts Unclassified draft version 1.0 not for release - Yet! Needs an editors proof.

by Gerhard Langguth Copyright 03/15/2011

As people around the world watch another nuclear event unfold, the experts that the mass media quotes seem to be as clueless as the reporters who either repeat their words or condense them into tasteless mouthwash. Case in point todays CNN article

By Elizabeth Landau and Madison Park, CNN

Contamination vs. exposure

Radiation is invisible; you cannot taste it, or smell it, or feel it on your fingers, Thrall said.

There are four primary kinds of ionizing radiation, which is light that has enough energy to ionize an atom, i.e. make it into a charged particle. Alpha particles are relatively heavy and, when emitted, cannot penetrate human skin or clothing, but are harmful if they get into the body otherwise. Beta radiation can cause skin injury and are also harmful to the body internally. Gamma and X-rays are high-energy invisible light that can damage tissue and are most hazardous to humans.

It's not possible to directly measure the amount of radiation exposure a person has had. Exposure refers to the energy the body has absorbed from radioactive material, the high-energy invisible light rays that unstable chemicals emit.

When you see people with Geiger counters checking around a site like Fukushima Daiichi, they're measuring contamination -- which generally refers to actual radioactive particles.

Radiation like many semi-scientific words goes back to a latin root - radius. When the ancients began to apply geometry and mathematical models to the mysteries of the universe they gave new concepts names drawn from the world around them. The radius of a wheel is the theoretical length of one of its spokes. From there it is just a quantum leap to imagine that a point source of light sends out rays of light in a similar fashion.

So radiation is not a specific thing. It describes a pattern of lines expanding from some central point. A spiders web radiates so does sound and the ripples in a body of water when something disturbs the surface. And it is exactly those examples that science has used to guide its pet theories.

Light is an example of what is commonly called electromagnetic radiation. So are radio waves, gamma rays and infrared radiation. The only difference is the frequency or energy density of the waves. Plants respond to various froms of radiation. Humans use advanced photo receptors called eyes to convert the visible spectrum into charges that produce a cascading electrochemical response leading to sight. Skin responds to infrared radiation allowing even primitive creatures to seek the warmth of spring sunshine while avoiding injury from the heat of a lava flow. Note that not everything on Wikipedia is absolutely correct and neither is the author. Science is 75% fiction, 20 percent intuition and 5 perfect cold hearten facts. It is the readers choice and duty to chose the correct disambiguation.

Mankind has long known that some materials give off heat or cause phosphorescence. Small phosphoric impurities in the glass of Crookes Tubes lead to the discovery of rays seen behind the cathode. Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) and the invention of television were just one of the minor results. Experiments quickly established that these rays had much in common with particles. Dubbed electrons they quickly shattered the widely held scientific consensus of the mid to late 1800s that atoms were the smallest indivisible particles in the universe.

Once that egg was broken it was just a short time before more powerful experiments proposed shattering other long held theorems and further bloating government science budgets. A process that the Large Hadron Collider will undoubtedly continue. Likewise the concurrent development of ancillary technology such as photography indirectly lead to the discovery of X rays by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895. Henri Becquerel and Marie Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for their discovery of spontaneous radiation. Madam Curie coined the term radioactivity and her principles for measuring its relative strength are still in use today.

Ernest Rutherford arbitrarily used the Greek letters alpha and beta to distinguish the less penetrating radiation coming from Thorium from the more penetrating kind that came from Uranium. When the rays from Madame Curie's element Radium were found to be far more penetrating by Paul Vilard. Rutherford concurred with his findings and gave them the letter gamma in 1903. Even with heightened government emphasis on research in the development of weapons of the masses destruction, the neutron was not postulated as an essential part of matter until 1920. Experimental confirmation had to wait until the early 1930's when advances in instrumentation and power systems allowed. In 1934 Ernest Lawrence used the worlds largest electromagnet weighing in at a mere eighty six tons at his Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkley to create and focus neutrons into a beam that acted like gamma rays but had an even greater penetrating power. Even the Terminator serving as California's governor was unable to close the ensuing state budgetary black hole or do much to reign in the high priced education system.

That is but a short abbreviated history of radiation. Sufficient references and link are embedded to unravel as much or as little of that ball of yarn as the reader may care to. Understanding where words come from and why things were called what they are is often more important then whatever definitions or equations some person currently professing to be the ex-spurt (ie a drip under pressure or some ancient chair that long ago gave up its spirut). History is important but so are consistent models and an understanding of the mechanics of their interactions.

Ions are defined as charged particles. Alpha rays were found to be ionized helium atoms. Beta rays have the same charge and mass of Cathode rays but much more energy. Once they slow down by giving off most of their energy to the surrounding matter alpha particles will steal two electrons and become helium gas. Likewise betas become indistinguishable from ordinary electrons.

In the vacuum of space or the substantially more crowded space inside a vacuum tube, charged particles can travel long distances without encountering any gas molecules. So alpha, beta and positrons emitted from the Sun can travel 93 million miles before hitting the magnetosphere. There most of them simply slide over the earth's protective bubble like air going over an airfoil. Some of them get caught in field lines that project from the planets magnetic poles and come crashing into the atmosphere. During solar storms the bremsstrahlung radiation and ionization of gases in the very thin air many miles above the ground create magnificent aurora that light up significant portions of the earth. These interactions quickly slow down the incoming ionized particles protecting life on the ground below.

X and Gamma rays are not directly effected by the magnetic fields. Since they are not ionized they often skip right through the electron cloud of low mass atoms. For astronauts in unshielded craft the exposure to a burst of either from a solar event can be deadly. Flying on a commercial aircraft at higher altitudes significantly increases exposure. One time or occasional doses probably have no measurable effects however, the US Government now mandates that airlines limit the occupational exposure of their flight crews and train pilots to take space weather into account lowering their programmed altitude which requires more fuel but minimizes the risk from solar storms. Frequent fliers might want to monitor their exposure, alter their schedules and take space weather conditions into account before boarding.

Cosmic rays generated by stellar events are charged particles but with astronomically greater energy. Some of them completely penetrate the atmosphere and add about 30 millirems of radiation exposure to all life on the surface of the earth. Space electronics are hardened against them but their extreme penetrating power and massive energy often deposit in a small volume still routinely cause glitches or permanent damage to electronic circuits and is on of the routine cause for a craft to go into safe mode.

All of that has to do with something called quantum physics which is still an wild beast insufficiently domesticated for Occum's Razor to have much effect. By the way the new French fried communist unit is called a sievert or Sv. After all these years giving some German credit is still strictly verboten. For those with good ole American made to last for ever surplus Civil Defense radiation measurement castoffs converting from Röntgen Equivalent Man (rem) is easy. One Sv equals 100 rem which just so happens to be the amount of acute exposure it takes to bring on the equivalent of radiation sniffles.

For most humans environmental background radiation and radioactive elements in the air we breath, foods we eat, water we drink and building materials we use to construct our homes is the greatest chronic lifetime exposure we get. Most of it is natural and the fact that animals and humans have sought the apparently curative powers of Hot Springs like those in Arkansas and the world over whose effervescent waters give off significant quantities of radioactive gases and are laced with numerous toxic elements such as arsenic and lead all in quantities far beyond statutory limits - those facts tend to support the theory that at some low level what is toxic in the extreme may actually be good for life when taken in small quantities over long periods of time - hormesis. Of course we must now add extremely large short term doses from nuclear events, dental X rays and the various medical procedures into the mix but that is a debate well beyond the bounds of this essay.

Experts falsely state that you cannot feel or see radiation. Light is radiation we see and infrared is heat radiation we can feel. Neither one of them has enough energy to ionize an atom. In the same way microwave cooking and cell phone radio wave photons lack a sufficient quantum of energy to oxidize DNA. Whether the molecular vibrations they cause can effect brain function is another matter. They may burn the skin or blind the eyes but they cannot do more then cook tissue. Same goes for alpha radiation except for those cases where it can get inside the body. Without a protective layer of dead skin these massive energetic particles will tear apart or ionize many atoms in a small volume of tissue. Over time those injuries can accumulate like the damage from cigarette smoke or fine dusts like asbestos and coal. So the ingestion of alpha emitting radio active material can lead to all those forms of disease. Especially in organs that concentrate the chemical species involved.

We now know that beta radiation is more penetrating and just like ultraviolet light it is possible to get a beta sun burn. Likewise an astute observer may be able to feel the onset in much the same way you get that scratchy feeling on your neck telling you its time to call it a day at the beach. Beta emitters are also an internal hazard. Most radioactive material emits both gamma and beta radiation. Neutrons are rare in nature outside of stellar cores. Even in a nuclear reactor once the chain reaction has stopped neutron levels tend to drop dramatically in just a few hours. High energy (fast) neutrons are very penetrating but water also slows them down quickly. Then they just wander around and are either absorbed or decay to a proton, a beta and some form of gamma ray with a half life of about 11 seconds. Which means that a mile of air is almost an impenetrable shield

Since even the thinest metal shell stops beta, several yards of air surely will. What we are left with is gamma radiation and radioactive contamination. Gamma radiation is like ultraviolet light. Turn it off or seek shelter and the damage stops. Same goes for external contamination, remove clothing, clean the skin and flush out places where it may hide and the event is over as long as the body has not absorbed any of the material.

Iodine is an example of what we are talking about. This chemical accumulates in the thyroid gland. It is also one of the species found in realtive abundance in the cores of reactors and easily spread around during a nuclear disaster. Since our body can't distinguish between normal and radioactive iodine at least not in the minute quantities at issue, the ingested radioactive iodine in the food supply will find its way to the thyroid and accumulate the exposure to give it a bad sun burn. An easy counter measure is to saturate the system with normal iodine so that whatever small quantities of the radioactive species are encountered the body will either reject or at least flush them out with minimal chronic exposure.

A few last comments.

Exposure is exposure. Whether the dose comes from the ingestion of contaminated materials or direct radiation from the explosion of a nuclear weapon. It is the energy per unit volume of tissue and the susceptibility of those organs to radiation damage that matter. Contamination is like litter on the side of the road. Radioactive materials properly stored or in their protective containers are not a hazard. However when the trash company dumps half a can on the side walk or looses a load on the way to the dump that is a bad problem.

We can detect the problem and more importantly how bad it is by using instruments that smell for the radiation. And the same instruments that measure for the direct kind on one scale can be used to detected the radiation (smell) coming from radioactive contamination. No smell (gamma radiation) is not an absolute guarantee that there might not be small quantities out there but it does eliminate most. So even a cheap 60 year old Geiger counter is a good tool. One that detects betas and has different ranges and a "beta window" as in shutters to block or allow betas in is better except for the fact that windows break and in those cases closing the shutter would not restore function.

Right now the Japanese government and its lap dog American Nuclear Industry are trying to tell the world to remain calm. Don't worry. We know what we are doing and there is never going to be another Chernobyl. They may be right. Then again this earth quake was what - a hundred times stronger then anything they said could ever happen. So maybe it is time to quit trusting those ex-patRE:-idiots and at least learn how to use and read a meter so you can make your own run, walk or stay put decision. There are thousand of useful instruments tucked away in court house basements or given to schools for educational purposes.

Find them. Or buy them on eBay. Learn how to use them and arm yourselves. Next time you see one of those trucks with a nuclear symbol on it take a sniff with the all the windows closed. If the gamma radiation level in the left lane is more then a few millirems you may want to move ahead quickly or take the next exit and let some other dimwit observe the effects of radiation exposure up close and personal. daGubamint may not like it and those nuclear corporations will no doubt be concerned but at least your children have a chance of coming out with the correct number of finger and toes.

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Confidential but unclassified and protected private speech. Not for release or dissemination unless of course Earnest says its OK :)