Re: natural and un-natural radiation

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

On Sun, 30 Apr 2000, Kjell A. Johansen wrote:

> Just a couple of comments to this ongoing debate with Norm Cohen.
> First of all to Steven Dapra, Jay Gould is approximately correct, a
> change from 24.4 to 24.6 is about an increase of 1%.  Take the
> difference and divide by the original and you get 0.2/24.4 which is
> roughly 1%.
> Next Norm Cohen, radiation is radiation.  For example, UV is UV.  You
> can get just as much of a sunburn from a tanning salon as from the sun.
> The body just does not differentiate.  The body reacts to a 5 MeV alpha
> from a naturally occurring radionuclide the same as it does to a 5 MeV
> alpha from a reactor product.

	--Myfavorite way of saying this is that when a DNA molecule in a
cell nucleus gets hit by an alpha particle (or gamma ray, or energetic
electron), there is no way for the DNA molecule to "Know" whether that
alpha particle came from a natural or from a man-made source. The effects
must therefore be the same.

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