Let us first tackle the question on what is radiation? Basically, radiation is an energy source that has the capability of penetrating anything and can be soaked up by that object. Plenty of people imagine that radiation is some kind of rock that glows green and cause profound effects to the human body and the environment. The belief is not entirely false but the world of comic books fails to mention what is beyond that small definition.
To help us further understand what is radiation, let us know the two kinds of radiation. The first one is known as ionizing radiation and is the most normally known or thought of radiation. Ionizing radiation is a kind of radiation that has minute particles with their own energy supply that has the ability to take away an electron from a molecule or atom. The product of this stripping is called free radicals and is known by the scientific world as a reactive chemical that can cause plenty of biological damage.
On the other hand, non-ionizing radiation is the reverse of ionizing radiation. It still has energy in it but not enough to cause an electron to be removed rather it excites the electron in order for it to move to another energy level. Again, like ionizing radiation, it too has side effects to the human body and the environment. Some examples of non-ionizing radiation are visible light, infrared, microwaves and radio waves.
In the face of the many possible health threats in the use of radiation, the world still needs and has many uses for it. It used to diagnose and treat many diseases and also play an important role in medical research for the search of another breakthrough in the field of medicine. Another medical application for radiation is treatment for cancer and is known as radiation therapy.
Radiation has also been used in communication. All types of recent telecommunication systems and devices use electromagnetic radiation to send out data. It is the difference of intensity of the radiation that helps deliver that data into an understandable form like pictures and sounds. Another application is in the field of science. Science uses it in many ways and one of them is carbon dating in which one can learn about the age of a certain object no matter how old it may be.
But the most famous use of radiation is nuclear radiation. It can make life easy and also take it away in a blink of an eye. Plenty of countries take advantage of nuclear power to give nearly endless amounts of energy to power their cities and also military weapons like submarines.The world has also seen the destructive power of the nuclear energy when the atomic bomb plowed through Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Indeed, radiation is a very useful and important resource in the modern world. It has the potential to make a comfortable life and also destroy it.