About a century ago, scientists started meddling with an unfamiliar force of nature and the rest of us were terrified. That force was called electricity and nowadays we’re all fine with it. What Timothy Jorgensen wants to know is: why don’t we feel equally relaxed about radiation? After all, electricity is just as dangerous, but only if you’re very unlucky or very stupid. As his sparky book explains, radiation is really much the same. So why are we so scared of it, even when we’ve (usually) no need to be?
Cards on the table: I know nothing about science. But that’s OK, because this book is meant for Luddites like me. Not only do most of us fail to understand what radiation is (‘energy on the move’ is Jorgensen’s useful definition), we’re hopeless at weighing its risks and benefits. Radiation can be good and bad for you (sunlight is a good example). It can cause and cure cancer (cancer cells are more sensitive to radiation, so a low dose can kill your tumours without killing you). As Jorgensen says:
If you don’t want a radiation-induced cancer, lower your radiation exposure as much as possible. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it sounds, because if you are too vigilant about keeping your exposure down you will deprive yourself of some of the benefits of radiation technology.
The scientists who discovered radiation were groping in the dark. Marconi had no idea why his radio waves could travel round the world, since they move in straight lines (the atmosphere acts as a lid which stops them sailing off into space). Einstein never thought of making an atom bomb until a layman wrote to him and suggested it (Einstein thought it was a daft idea).
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