F Gump said:
Im trying to get over OCD, maybe someone can help me with some irational fears. I hate to change batteries in my smoke dector because a stray chunk of radioactive material might have come loose.
F Gump,
First, the radioactive material in smoke detectors is Americium-241.
Am-241 is an alpha emitter. That is the type of radiation that Am-241
emits is a particle called an alpha particle. It is the nucleus of a
Helium-4 atom without the 2 electrons circling it.
Because it doesn't have its electrons, an alpha particle has a net charge
of +2. Therefore, it interacts very strongly with matter. That strong
reaction is a double-edged sword. The strong reaction causes the alpha
particle to deposit its energy very quickly - energy which can cause
damage. The flip side is that because the alpha particle loses its energy
so readily; it has a very short range - it doesn't go very far.
So here's the real good news. Alpha particles are stopped by a piece of
paper. An alpha particle can't even get through the dead layer of skin
surrounding your body! Your own dead skin shields you from alphas.
So an alpha-emitting radioisotope like Am-241 can't hurt you if it is
external. The Am-241 is also in an enclosed area of the smoke detector
that you aren't going to disturb when changing the battery.
So by all means - keep that smoke detector supplied with good batteries.
The good that the smoke detector does by being "on guard" to warn you
of a fire - totally SWAMPS the virtually non-existant risk of the use of
the radioactive material.
#2 Ill never wear a watch with tritium on the hands because, well it just freaks me out.
You have tritium falling on you ALL the time when you are outside!
Tritium is produced naturally in the upper atmosphere by interaction
of particles from the Sun and atoms in the upper atmosphere.
#3 I drive the long way around limerick power plant because maybe something fell out of a truck during trasnport and i don't way to run it over and have it stick to my car or the smoke stacks look ominous and maybe some radioactive steam leaked out.
Not a chance! First, the stuff that goes into a nuclear power plant is
no more radioactive than when it was dug out of the ground.
Secondly, at present - we don't ship radioactive material like nuclear
waste out of the plant - it all stays in the plant at present. Even when
we finally decide to ship the waste out for permanent storage - the
waste will be shipped in containers that are the strongest we know how
to build. They've been tested for their ability to survive any accident -
like a collision with a train. Courtesy of the Sandia Nationa Laboratory
that tests these "spent fuel casks":
http://www.sandia.gov/recordsmgmt/ctb1.html
which shows an experiment in which the cask on its flatbed truck was
parked across a railroad track. Sandia strapped rockets to the diesel
locomotive and slammed it into the cask at high speed. The diesel "lost"
in that collision. The only damage to the cask was cosmetic.
For a video of the test, see:
http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?/catnum=2&catid=83
I know I am silly about this, but maybe an expert can tell me just how silly it is to worry all about this. P.s i also wear special old sneakers and clothes when i have to go to any hospital because i once was walking down the hall when a women was wheeling a metal box with the big yellow radioactive symbol on it. Thanks for all the help.
The box was shielded - so you needn't have worried.
Also, when you see a warning sticker, a warning sticker of any kind;
not just the radioactive symbol - that means that people are taking
the proper precautions, and handling things properly.
There are people with OCD similar to yours whose fear is "germs" [ like
Howard Hughes ]. But we all know that germs are all around us.
Humans evolved in a world full of germs - and we evolved an immune
system to attack them so they don't don't damage us.
Well, the world is also full of radiation and radioactivity - most of it
is there naturally. Courtesy of Idaho State University:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/radrus.htm
Since we evolved in a world full of radiation - we also evolved with an
immune system that deals with radiation also. Courtesy of Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory:
http://www.llnl.gov/str/JulAug03/Wyrobek.html
This research shows that we have an "immune" response to radiation.
Additionally, small doses of radiation actually stimulates this
protection mechanism - and helps us ward off damage by larger doses.
In other words, small radiation doses work like a vaccine. In a vaccine,
you give the person a small amount of the virus or bacteria that you
want to ward off, the body's immune system attacks and destroys this
small amount of pathogen - and the immune system is all "primed" to
handle a larger onslaught by that same pathogen.
The body's response to radiation is much the same way!
The problem today is that we have a media that, in its quest for
sensational stories; "hypes" non-issues and scares everybody.
ABC's John Stossel did a very good piece on "Nightline" serveral years
back called, "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?". It essentially took
the media to task for hyping "scare-stories". They get ratings - and
people like you pay the price in a diminished quality of life - because you
live in fear; and because we have to forego technologies that could give
us all a better quality of life.
Courtesy of PBS's "Frontline" program called "Nuclear Reaction", here's
the transcript of an interview with a psychiatrist that discusses nuclear
fears:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/dupont.html
Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist