What exactly is radiation? How does radiation affect health?

What exactly is radiation? How does radiation affect health?

The word "radiation" always makes people feel mysterious or scared. But what exactly is radiation? How does it harm your health? What to pay attention to about it? In fact, many people are not really aware of these issues, and there may be many misunderstandings.

1. Radiation radiation from one point to all directions

For example, if you throw a small stone on the water surface, there will be countless concentric ripples on the water surface. This is the form of radiation that "spreads from one point to all directions". Extend the water surface to a three-dimensional space. For example, if you light a candle in an empty room, the light will shoot out three hundred and sixty degrees up, down, left, and right, illuminating all corners of the room, that is, "spreading from one point to all directions" radiation. In other words, radiation is a radial propagation method, which spreads radially from one point to all directions. Broadly speaking, everything that conforms to this mode of propagation is called radiation.

This is the so-called "radiation" that usually causes anxiety and even fear. The official name is electromagnetic radiation. It emits mysterious rays-electromagnetic waves from one point in all directions.

2. Wave - conduction of changing states

At first glance, electromagnetic waves, both charged, magnetic and radiating, make people feel a little panic involuntarily. The electromagnetic waves that we usually know, such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, etc., are almost invisible and intangible, and they also give people a sense of mysterious fear.

In fact, no matter how you say it, the essence of electromagnetic waves is a kind of wave. We might as well throw off the "electromagnetism" first and just treat it as a "wave". Will it be more cordial? Wave is very vivid and intuitive. For example, "waves are turbulent", even if you can't remember the sea when you are mature, at least you can think of a kind of oscillating ups and downs. That's right, oscillating ups and downs, back waves pushing forward waves, this is a wave.

The first property, oscillating and fluctuating, is vibration. If it doesn't move, there will be no waves. It's easy to understand that it is related to reality.

The second property is that the back wave pushes the front wave, that is, conduction. If you can't move by yourself, your vibrations have to be transmitted and continued. Just like playing with waves of people, the audience has to stand up one by one in order to have the effect of waves.

These two points are the basic properties of waves. A wave is the transmission of a certain vibrational state of change. For example, the water wave is the conduction of the undulating state of the water; the sound wave is the conduction of the sound vibration state; the seismic wave is the conduction of the collision state within the earth, and so on.

In the same way, electromagnetic waves are the conduction of electromagnetic changes of objects. There is a little bit of abstraction here. You see water waves, the state of water surface changes through ripples; sound waves, the state of vibration changes through the air; seismic waves, the state of underground changes through the tremor of the earth... These are all intuitive or easy to imagine, but "the state of electromagnetic changes "What is invisible and intangible, how can it be transmitted?

This conduction process is the so-called radiation, or the so-called electromagnetic wave.

In a word, electromagnetic waves (electromagnetic radiation) are the conduction of changes in the electromagnetic state of objects.

So, to say "we are irradiated by electromagnetic waves", or "we are exposed to electromagnetic radiation", is actually saying, "signals with electromagnetic changes are transmitted to us." The exact same meaning, will it be much more comfortable?

What exactly is radiation? How does radiation affect health? - Safeagle