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Post by Merkuri on Nov 25, 2003 16:39:19 GMT -5
Good point, Wyrm. Time for a science lesson everyone!!  Radiation isn't anything physical like water or even air. It's more like light. You can't hold light or store it in anything. Radiation is actually the movement of tiny particles (subatomic particles, actually). Different types of radiation come from different types of particles. Let's take a look at your standard uranium from a nuclear power plant. It's extremely unstable. The particles inside the nucleus of this uranium atom don't like to be next to each other. Think two north poles on magnets. So if they get hit by a random subatomic particle, they break apart. When they break apart, they release other subatomic particles (radiation). This will likely break more uranium atoms, and cause a chain reaction. This is how a nuclear reactor works. Uranium is a heavy metal, which by deffinition are large, unstable atoms. Now let's look at a hamburger. There are no heavy metals in hamburgers. There's a lot of carbon, sodium, chloride, oxygen, all very small and stable atoms. They're not likely to break apart. If you bombard them with radiation you won't get a chain reaction because the atoms inside of a hamburger are not nearly as easy to break as uranium atoms. The radiation particles will likely bounce around a bit, maybe break a few chemical bonds (which is also what you do when you cook meat), and then it will eventually find something to stick to. The end result is a cooked hamburger, not a radioactive one. |
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Post by RowanMoonWynd on Nov 25, 2003 19:23:26 GMT -5
Okay, so maybe I jumped the gun a bit here, yall bring up some very convining arguments. It's just went it comes to my children, I do tend to be on the over protective side...........just ask them........lol. They hate it. It's just that I really don't have much faith in our government (sadly the truth) and I always question what they do. Thanks for the insights.
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Post by Merkuri on Nov 25, 2003 20:01:19 GMT -5
Oh, I'm sure I would be the same way if I had kids. I've jumped the gun at things before. I just wanted to share the knowledge. |
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Post by Hussar on Nov 25, 2003 20:07:36 GMT -5
Merkuri, I beg to disagree with something you said:
I'm sorry, but this simply is not true. Look at nearly every product around you and you will see a higher quality, better made and more efficient thing. From you refrigerator to your car. The advances in machining, the growth of automated factories and several other reasons have contributed to a vast improvement in the quality of nearly every manufactured product.
Take cars as a perfect example. I can go out and buy a Ford today which has a 3 year bumper to bumper warrantee and a 5 year power train warrantee. Even on the cheapest of Fords. (Or GM or Toyota or pretty much everyone else) Why? Because cars don't break. The thing that people seem to forget is their 1974 Ford had to go into the shop or be tinkered with very regularly. I can take my new Ford, and other than oil changes, pretty much forget about repairs for the next four or five years. This is unheard of previously.
Or think about this. When was the last time your fridge broke? Or your washing machine? Or your TV? Radio? The list goes on and on.
One thing I do agree with though is a lot of the problem comes from selective reporting. One thing to be aware of though with the murder statistics. In Baltimore over the last 10 years, murders have dropped in half. But, the number of gun shot victims brought to hospitals have remained the same. What happened? The medical staff at the hospitals and the equipment and procedures they use have improved so much that they can now routinely save people who would have died 10 years ago. It's not that less people are being shot, stabbed, whatever, it's that the hospitals have gotten that much better at saving people.
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Post by Merkuri on Nov 26, 2003 8:30:53 GMT -5
Hey, all I know is that my grandmother has a radio and a washing machine that are getting on 50 years old that work fine, while my parents' 20 year old washing machine likes to leak something that leaves grease spots on everyone's shirts. I'm just repeating the complains of my dad. To be honest I don't have much experience to look back on and say that things were made better back then. Maybe later I'll ask exactly what he was complaining about and get back to you.  |
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Post by Hussar on Nov 27, 2003 0:58:51 GMT -5
Sorry. That kind of wishful nostalgia really bugs me. I've heard far too many people decry modern times and whinge and complain how things today aren't as good as before. Whether it be products, or people or whatever. IMO, the truth of the matter is, nothing ever really changes. If things look worse now than they did in the past, then perhaps its time for some new glasses.
To give a perfect example. A female friend of mine was trying to tell me how much better things were in the 60's. (not that she lived through them, but, somehow she KNEW) I stopped her halfway through her rant and asked a question:
Isn't your dad black? I asked.
Yes, she replied.
Then how could things possibly be better for your family then than they are now? I said.
She never really did answer me.
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Post by Wyrmfire on Nov 28, 2003 14:34:50 GMT -5
Actually, Hussar, sometimes minor things like appliances actually do go a little bit downhill. Plastic is 10 times cheaper than metal, but until relatively recently it wasn't good enough to be used in appliances. When they have X amount of steel instead of low-grade plastics, appliances DO tend to last longer. Please note that the preceding opinion is not motivated by nostalgia for the sixties. I couldn't give up my T3  |
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Post by Hussar on Nov 29, 2003 1:10:03 GMT -5
Back to the topic at hand for a moment. I think the biggest part of the problem stems from a rather unfortunate naming of a process. Had they called it "Electricly Purified" or something like that, I think that people would be less apprehensive. But, noooo, they have to use the word "irradiated". What monkey thought up this name? Hmm, lets take one of the most hated and feared words in the English language and apply it to a food process. Oh yeah. Good thinking there. NOT! I bet the company would love to take the dumb bunny that came up with this term and publicly flog him or her.
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Post by RowanMoonWynd on Nov 29, 2003 1:45:47 GMT -5
I think your right on that one Hussar, if it had of said "Electricly Purified", I think I still would have been somewhat apprehensive, but not nearly as alarmed as I was to hear "irradiated".
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Slag
Soldier
F'n A, mate!
Posts: 157
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Post by Slag on Dec 2, 2003 14:10:15 GMT -5
No, I'm not. But I do see how it could be taken that way. No, I went to the Ralph Nader site and started poking around and it just really bugged me. Ralph Nader and the liberals in America and Canada have slowly become the most over protective mother hens in history. They are responsible for 11 oclock curfews in American and Canadian cities. They are resposible for disseminating so much fear mongering around the country that it just really, really P's me off. Certainly, calling into question policy is a good thing. It is always good to double check what the governement is doing. It's our responsibility as citizens to do so. However, simply jumping up and down and claiming the sky is falling each and every time something comes out is counter productive. And, so often, that is precisely what these watch groups do. It isn't that Bush is wrong for doing this, it's that Bush is doing this therefore it must be wrong. While I am certainly no fan of dubuya, (heh) even I'm not so blinded as to think that EVERYTHING he does is wrong. RMW, if my rant seems aimed at you, I appologize, it certainly wasn't meant to be. It was aimed at the people who write articles like the one you quoted and which has been quoted and getting lots of airplay on the news. The people who sit back on their soapboxes and continually criticize, not because they have a better idea, not because the actions being taken are necessarily wrong, but because thier preconceptions are such that there is no possible way that their opponents could be right. The "liberals" have become entirely closeminded and cut off from reality. Well stated. I am also sick and tired of people whining about things they don't understand rather than trying to understand them. As an electrical engineer you get it alot where people who know nothing about electromagnetics complain about the "Dangers" of electromagnetic radiation. They always point to cell phones and high-voltage power lines and sceam about cancer and mutation (these are hazards of nuclear radiation, NOT electromagnetic radiation which is entirely different). The one that really gets me is the complaints about High Voltage power lines. "Think of all that Voltage and the radiation it's sending out!" The big problem with that line of reasoning is that EM radiation is proportional to the current through the lines, not the voltage. Since the current in the high-voltage lines is miniscule they are actually radiating less than the lower-voltage lines in you house which use a higher current. People should do their research before jumping on the "Fear Bandwagon". |
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Post by Wyrmfire on Dec 2, 2003 14:43:24 GMT -5
Slag, you're an EE? I am in my freshman year, with that major! Small world.
Personally, I think that this kind of reaction is understandable, considering the garbage that's on TV and in the papers now. If your average happy suburbanite watches sixty minutes, they'll probably start hiding in the closet with a baseball bat 24/7.
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Slag
Soldier
F'n A, mate!
Posts: 157
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Post by Slag on Dec 2, 2003 15:10:09 GMT -5
Slag, you're an EE? I am in my freshman year, with that major! Small world. Yep...working EE, graduated in '02. Good luck on the major, Wyrmfire. It's a beyotch and a half and will take alot of work. If you really want it don't lose hope: it's the persistent students that make it in Engineering... Agreed, but I also blame a general sense of knee-jerk reaction to everything that seems the slightest bit askew. Note to everybody: If you saw it on TV, in the newspaper, or (worst of all) on the Web, research it from more than one source before you pass it along!!! |
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Post by Merkuri on Dec 2, 2003 16:07:39 GMT -5
I think the "knee-jerk" reaction comes from being bombarded with image after image in the media of things they say we should be frightened of. It's almost inevitable to become paranoid in the American society. Take our fear of bacteria, for example. We waaay over-use antibiotics. My sister once went to her college's health center and the nurse there told her, "You have a virus. Antibiotics won't help you, but do you want them anyway?" She being the rational type said no thanks, but too many people would take them just to feel like they were doing something to kill the virus, even though they weren't. We're hypochondriacs compared to some European countries. I remember when my cousins from Germany came over one year we were having a picnic. One of them dropped a potato chip or something on the ground and she picked it right up and ate it. All the Americans were going, "Ewww! That's dirty! Don't eat it!" and the Europeans said, "What's the big deal? It's just grass." And it's not like Europeans are any less healthy than Americans.
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Slag
Soldier
F'n A, mate!
Posts: 157
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Post by Slag on Dec 2, 2003 16:16:42 GMT -5
We're so afraid of our children getting sick that we're all but keeping them in bubbles. We wipe everything down with antibacterial crap to the point that the bacteria are becoming resistant and we're sheltering our kids from germs so much we're hampering the development of their immune systems. I'f we're not careful our germ fears may one day prove a self-fulfilling prophesy.
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Post by Wyrmfire on Dec 2, 2003 16:20:23 GMT -5
Well, we just have to pump our kids full of antibiotics until we develop laser-equipped nanomachines that zap viruses before they can spread...  |
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