Background Radiation: The World Around You

Discussion of radioactive dose. Quantification of radioactive does including Sieverts and REM. Breakdown of radiation dose from natural and manmade sources and how that has changed over time, what they are, and why they are there. This includes radon, cosmic rays, medical procedures, potassium in your body, x-rays and others. Cosmic ray does vs elevation of where one lives. Common radioactive materials are examined and shown such as lantern mantles, smoke-detectors, salt substitute, and Fiesta Ware plates.

[@Volksgenossen]

I'd love to take this guy's classes!

[@MrEthanhines]

I love this guy he makes radiation so much easier to understand

[@sanjaymehta6948]

Not only is he a great teacher, but he excels at writing backwards. Impressive.

[@michaelschwartz9485]

7:07 "I don't have any idea how you escape cosmic rays." That part cracked me up! Smart, good looking and funny. He's the complete package! You're awesome Professor Energy!

[@tduic]

Wonderful lectures. The clarity, conciseness and wit remind me of a late Richard Feynman. Instant subscribe.

[@MultiPetercool]

Ah! Orange Fiestaware! My physics prof also gave us the dish and Geiger counter demo. Wahoo!

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

Well, I learned something today, following up on this talk. Thoron is radon-220, and comes from radon-220, which is part of the decay chain of an isotope of thorium, but more directly from the decay of a radium isotope. Radon-222 comes from the decay of another radium isotope. Hence the name radon. But they're both called radon. It's all a bit confusing. And radon actually has a whole bunch of isotopes.

[@randycarstens1100]

This the guy you want in your fallout shelter with you if things go bad.

[@no99mnecfw]

Unfortunately my fallout shelter is stocked with FiestaWare

[@justgivemethetruth]

@@no99mnecfw Real fallout

[@420sakura1]

He's probably one of the scientists monitoring you from the outside.

[@randycarstens1100]

@@no99mnecfw I get your joke. Fiesta Ware is made with Uranium salt. Not so prevalent anymore.

[@thetruth9803]

"And the dose of this plate is uhm Ohhhh" yep, thats totally what you want to hear haha.

[@DrWhosmate]

The plate has a very disturbing history, back in the day a plate (pewter, very common), would have high lead content, people would eat tomatoes and other acidic foods that would leach the lead from the plate, this would build up over time and end many lives. The fear was then from the food itself, rather than the means of delivery, It had to be the consumed that killed. Radiation is probably the least understood process in our modern history, from a global population perspective.

[@420sakura1]

​@@DrWhosmateand end anti nuclear propoganda by those with vested interests don't help either.

[@DrWhosmate]

@@420sakura1 As with most things, people only tend to read the headlines and seldom progress into the descriptions or data, or even question those headlines. Even worse with alt-media, an industry that gets paid in the exact same manner, without the independent oversight or editorial process of the MSM, yet is trusted without question by many who consume it, whom in the same breath will say: 'you cannot trust the MSM!'! That's not even getting into audience capture, either! The information age has been wonderful for humankind, but misinformation seems to be a much greater challenge in modern times than most would have realised.

[@spacy7test812]

Great videos not dry and well thought out even my kitten likes them

[@Jakek200]

I used to live in a house that apparently had a high amount of Radon in its basement... Probably due to the floor drains literally going to the dirt under the house so there were several open holes in the floor letting that stuff in.

[@justincase4812]

...And THAT'S what you need to know about Background Radiation.

[@thaturaniumguy]

Too bad he didn't end with the traditionnal : ''And that's what you need to know about... "

[@despota2]

And that's what you need to know about background radiation.

[@Paul-ty1bv]

3.6 Roentgen. I'm told it's the equivalent of a chest X-ray.

[@dramese]

Great teacher

[@puncheex2]

Lol. "many times it is simply a water molecule...". The energy of a decay alpha may rattle around for 120,000 ricochets before it becomes a peaceable member of the universe, as an atom of helium. 3:53: The graph mentions "Radon and thoron". Thoron was an old name for radon, back in the 1930s when the nature of the neutron wasn't yet well known, and all these amazing materials and gasses were coming out of heavy metals bombarded by neutrons. Thoron was a portmanteau for "Thorium emanation" because it came from bombarding thorium. Our professor is much more comfortable with the old, deprecated units of radioactivity than the new-fangled metric units. Just an observation... heh, heh. 7:22 You escape cosmic rays by digging deep, really deep. In the deep mines on the planet, scientists have placed various neutrino capturing experiments, which would be driven bonkers by cosmic rays. That's about your only option. Cosmic rays are very, very energetic, so energetic they don't usually stop for mere mortals, thank the gods 8:20 "but the thing radon changes into does become part of your body"... not to speak of the fact that it emits an alpha when doing so. Yet, if that happened once a second, it would be one Becquerel of radiation, a very tiny amount. Finnish well water has been measured at 220 Becquerels per liter, also from radon, as it happens. 10:45 - Why, I live just outside of Denver, as it happens, 25 feet closer to heaven, and have for 70 years. It's *cough* just great! There was a video a couple of years back about marbles that were available that were made with uranium doping of the glass. They shown with a deep green color under UV light. This sort of glass, known as vaseline glass, was very popular in the early 1900s, the one and only use for uranium known at the time. Anyway, the comments on the video went through the roof with commenters telling people to watch out for those marbles, and for god's sake don't let your kids play with them. Simply ludicrous.

[@karhukivi]

Thoron is the name for Radon 220, radon is usually used to refer to Rn 222.

[@RocketDolphin89]

Worlds best teacher

[@roninbadger7750]

surprised I haven't heard of someone who has marketed fiesta ware as a long term storage food preservation container.

[@candlestyx8517]

If you live in Iowa, I would especially get your radon levels checked; we are entirely in a red zone for it.

[@cmas-astronomy4715]

Another interesting sources is optical instruments with thoriated glass lenses.

[@ZIlberbot]

except mentioned dust detector and plate from uranium glass there may be old style gauges and clocks with uranium numbers and some other examples

[@pepe6666]

radon ! :)

[@amittsabary3907]

What about the 40 mRem/yr you get from 1 pack of smokes/day?

[@theronnelson3704]

What about that one 17 year old who purchased a bunch of lanterns, refined the thorium, and used it to make a small reactor in his mom's garden shed. The authorities weren't happy. There was incidentally a lot of radiation exposure to the nearby community. The kid is now in prison.

[@rdbchase]

No, the uranium salts should be covered by a layer of fused silica.

[@oldi184]

What about the city of Potosi in Bolivia? This city is located 2.5 miles above sea level.

[@puncheex2]

Walking death.

[@karhukivi]

The hot springs at Ramsar spa and tourist attraction in Iran has the highest background radiation of anywhere in the world (excluding obvious problem areas like Chernobyl) and there have been many international studies of the population and their health. There is no evidence of any elevated occurrence of cancers or anything normally connected with radiation.

[@oldi184]

@@karhukivi I see. But why radiation there is so high?

[@karhukivi]

@@oldi184 There are uranium deposits in the bedrock and the hot water is bringing up radon and radon daughters are precipitating in the material around the springs.

[@freeman2399]

Those people are already dead. RIP

[@joechang8696]

fear the banana! assault with "deadly-ish" weapon?

[@majermike]

wow great things do come from the state of illinois after all

[@oldi184]

What about people who fly very often? For example air line pilots. They are spending a significant portion of their lives at the elevation of 10 km. That's 6.2 miles high.

[@Aimless6]

The airlines calculate the yearly dose of their crews. Crews who fly polar routes might exceed the occupational limit and have to vary their schedules. If there is a strong Aurora, the Atlantic lanes get moved south.

[@OpenGL4ever]

Cockpits do have a little more shilding than the passenger's cabin.

[@karhukivi]

Concorde had a radiation monitor on the instrument panel. Often pilots could not be rostered, not because of hours flown but because of accumulated dose per month.

[@oldi184]

@@karhukivi Thanks George. Btw what was the cruising ALT of Concorde? 20+ KM?

[@karhukivi]

@@oldi184 Between 50,000 and 60,000 feet, or 16-18 km.

[@T-1001]

Radon often comes from granite.

[@mpetersen6]

During the Congressional hearings into the Three Mile Island accident AEC scientists that had been at TMI were testifying as to just what radiation levels were present. They had the same gieger counters with as at TMI. One Congressman or Senator* asked the witness to demonstrate the device. The readings in the hearing room were much higher than outside TMI. Simply due to all of the stone used in the construction *I can't recall if it was a joint Committee or not.

[@fixedguitar47]

Just for argument sake, what blocks more radiation, a shingled roof or a steel roof? (I want a steel roof and I need to justify it, mostly cause it’s easier for me to put up)

[@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk]

No reason to need radiation shielding on a roof, but the key is mass. Find which one weighs more per square foot. Keep in mind a shingle roof has two layers that overlap.

[@fixedguitar47]

Dana Durnford & Kevin Blanch debunked I’m doing metal over my existing shingle roof

[@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk]

@@fixedguitar47 Doesn't matter. In no way would anyone need radiation shielding on their roof unless you live on the International Space Station.

[@dennisgarber]

Awesome information! Three questions. 1. Is this different than the emf new agers are fearful of? 2. Does this medical radiation number apply for anyone living in the city, the rural areas, working in hospitals, or the average one gets over a year or lifetime of medical scans? 3. As explained in kzbin.info/www/bejne/q5iqh6V_bdWcbNk she implies that alpha is only the result of hydrogen fission, Beta would be making bigger elements, gamma (the worst) is just excitement. So, something had to be missing from her explanation if easy to stop alpha is from all these minerals.

[@marks6663]

IF your yearly dose is about 600 mRem, and you live 80 years, you have already gotten 40% of a full Sievert. And if 1 Sievert is a terrible amount of radiation, as you stated, it would appear that the casual bit of radiation we get just by living is actually significant since radiation exposure is cumulative. Basically what this says is that if we as humans lived two or three times longer, we would all get cancer just from the being alive. 40% of a full Sievert is actually concerning.

[@maggiejetson7904]

Hard to say as long as you flush them out instead of accumulate them forever in your body like heavy metal.

[@marks6663]

@@maggiejetson7904 radiation dosage is cumulative, you don't flush it out. Radiation isn't something that stays in the body but the more radiation you are exposed to the greater the statistical chance of DNA damage

[@tudor9218]

He didn't say 1 Sv is a 'terrible' amount, he said 'a lot' - and that probably in terms of if you were to be continuialy exposed to it, like every day/week/month/year, not over an entire lifetime.

[@justgivemethetruth]

Not really, if you get less than the threshold amount of radiation, it sounds like over time it would have no effect as that is exactly what they were looking for.

[@justgivemethetruth]

@@marks6663 I don't think that is what he said. Radiation is not cumulative in the way we think of the word.

[@shemmo]

why radiation in my house increases during night up to 51 CPM? i see pattern here

[@Norvik_-ug3ge]

No one is ever going to buy an orange plate again.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

Rem…Oh yeah, that band is from Athens GA.

[@BillyBobDingo1971]

How much has background radiation increased since nukes became a thing? anyone know?

[@aprescienceofhumor7977]

Probably too late too expext answers or response to comments but with 5G being all the rave.... what impact and how significantbis RF and other electromagnetic radiation at low and much higher frequencies? I understand it to be non ionizing radiation but just love the expert feedback which demystifies the ignorant banter everyone is subjected to...

[@klausgartenstiel4586]

so people who sit in brick houses shouldn't throw stones either.

[@paulanhalt3609]

Can we just appreciate that this professor is speaking and writing backwards at the same time?

[@mikebetts2046]

We can't. He is writing forward and then the video is flipped.

[@adamkendall997]

I always thought dose = 2

[@fixedguitar47]

It’s so weird cause before this guy taught at U Of I he was teaching kindergarten??? Not only that, he didn’t change ANYTHING!?

[@EmilNicolaiePerhinschi]

space background radiation is not constant

[@autopartsmonkey7992]

uranium glass is soooo much nicer then ceramic plates.....go look at Vaseline glass

[@ciuyr2510]

Ok, so don`t buy uranium glazed plates. Noted!

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

I don't see anything about (1) how much background radiation comes from nuclear testing, and (2) how much comes from nuclear reactor accidents (almost all presumably from Chernobyl and Fukushima). Interestingly, how much dose you get from those types of events will depend on how old you are. Most of your exposure is from radioisotopes that you absorb, not directly from the environment. If you were born in, say, 1960, when a lot of testing was going on, you probably absorbed a lot more cesium and strontium (mainly) because there was a lot more coming down in rainfall. If you're really young, you have been absorbing from air and water that are much more depleted in those isotopes. I would expect that bomb testing caused a lot more radioisotope emissions than Chernobyl/Fukushima, but it would be interesting to see some numbers.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

​@Dorian Mode No doubt about it, that makes the situation more complicated. The dispersal reached globally in all those cases, even though many locations were remote; but the dispersal patterns were different in each case.

[@austinm9982]

A go find me for my man for a new suit.

[@cpanic1153]

Kids, this is what happens when you let your mother pick out your clothes.