Hi Friday, and welcome weekend!
I've finally come back home to the Rose-castle, and I'm here with Anders, a glass of red wine, and candles, and it's time for Friday Facts again! Today I've figured I have to tell you a little bit about radiation:
- radiation is really "just" energy that travels 🙂
- this energy can either be waves, or it can be particles
- in my field, radiation is normally alpha, beta, or gamma (but it can be other things too)
- alpha radiation and beta radiation are both examples of particle radiation
- alpha particles (or alpha radiation) are just helium nuclei - 2 protons and 2 neutrons, that is, and beta particles (or beta radiation) are just electrons
- gamma radiation is sort of like a very very intense "light" - so, waves
- the kind of radiation I work with (the radiation that comes from radioactive stuff) is called ionizing radiation - meaning that this kind of radiation can ionize the material it goes through; that is, it makes the atoms in the material lose its electrons, and that's not so nice :/
- in Norwegian it's often called "radioactive radiation" (radioaktiv stråling), which is not really correct, since neither alphas, betas or gammas are radioactive themselves (but they normally come from something that is radioactive, so a better word, in my opinion, is just "radioactivity") - this is maybe a very small thing to nag about, but it has just become my thing 😉
- you could actually make radioactive radiation - a ray (or a beam, which is what we normally call it) of, for example uranium (uranium is radioactive), or it could be neutrons (yup, free neutrons are actually radioactive, with a half life of almost 11 minutes)
- other kinds of radiation is for example visible light, ultraviolet radiation (the stuff that gives you a tan when you're in the sun), or infrared radiation 😀
Another day I have to tell you the story about how the neutrino (which is also a kind of particle radiation) got its name - it's a super cute story <3, that I was told for the first time yesterday...but it'll have to be another day, because now I have a date with my man and some more wine and the latest episode of the Big Bang Theory.
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Totally not related, but I got this picture in a tweet yesterday - I'm actually in a book now (I think it's a Norwegian book for high schools):
I am still waiting for the story of how the neutrino got its name! You seem very busy, and I have plenty of time, but hope it will make it to one of your posts any day now 😀
Thanks for reminding me! I had actually forgot (since yes, I have been very busy lately), but I'll try to make a post about it next week 🙂