Loading...It’s easy to think that radiation is bad; even the word “radiation” just sounds harmful. And the general popular feeling surrounding radiation doesn’t help, with “nuclear radiation” a global sign of something you want to stay away from. But this video argues that, despite the bad wrap surrounding radiation, it’s actually not all that bad, and can in fact is essential to your daily life.
This is, of course, the common confusion between electromagnetic radiation and nuclear radiation. These are two completely different phenomenon, one of which is very dangerous and one that is can sometimes be, but usually is harmless and very actually very helpful. In case you haven’t guessed, nuclear radiation is the harmful one, the harm coming from complex processes that happen inside the atoms of radioactive materials. All this and more is discussed in the great video above by TED-Ed, everything from ionizing radiation to what makes radioactive materials harmful.