Talk:Ionizing radiation/Archive 2008

Way too few inline citations

Would think that an article like this would have a plethora of sources to cite? It would be a laborious task to populate the article with "citation needed" tags.

70.105.202.145 (talk) 07:14, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

is all EM radiation potentially ionizing?

this discovery suggests that radio-waves can be ionizing. I think this should be included in the article as a recent discovery (not the stuff about making more energy than you put in, just that radio-waves can ionize water, the only discovery confirmed by the university researcher). 0¹⁸ 00:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• It might be appropriate as a minor mention in electromagnetic radiation but I would say it is not relevant here. Cruftbane 17:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that article suggests that radio waves can be ionizing. What is happening is the molecule H2O is broken into the atoms H and the atoms O. The H is then ignited. That is what is burning. BTW - It takes more energy to produce the radio waves than what is produced from the heat from the flame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Starkrm (talk • contribs) 22:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, but the reaction is not 2 H + O -> H₂O + energy. It is 2 H₂ + O₂ -> 2 H₂O + energy. At some point (at least as an intermediate) you need an ion to be formed, and it is the radio wave that must be forming it. 0¹⁸ (talk) 17:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Printing problems?

Does anyone else have problems printing this page? I assumed it was my printer, then my computer, but it's not. I've printed other pages from Wikipedia fine on this computer, and I've tried to print this page on three other printers from other computers here at work and every time, it locks up the printer AND the computer. But it's this page only. Is there some kind of technical issue with this page? Anybody know a way to find out? Squad51 (talk) 16:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy question

The article's third sentence is as follows:

A large flood of particles or waves will not cause ionization if the individual particles or waves are not energetic enough.

How about multiphoton absorptions? If two (or more) non-ionizing photons are absorbed at the same time then won't ionization take place? I seem to have read something about this in conjunction with high photon fluxes and the photoelectric effect. I don't have the answer, but perhaps someone reading this does. - Astrochemist (talk) 05:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Missing citations

I added the 'needs citation' flag to 3 facts: [1] the allegation that the background level in Ramsar, Iran is much larger than the rest of the world, but there are no signs of genetic anomalies in the population [2] the claim by proponents of nuclear power that the average dose due to the entire nuclear cycle is less than the exposure due to wearing trousers for 2 minutes (I hope that this is not comparing dose in grays to joules/kg in the form of heat, since such a comparison is highly misleading) [3] the claim by opponents of nuclear power that it increases the number of cancers per year by several hundreds (where? worldwide? in the city near the plant? in the state?).PloniAlmoni (talk) 11:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to add a note now that the reference for (1) should not be self published. 0¹⁸ (talk) 20:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reactant?

What is the meaning of the phrase Chronic exposure is reactant (found in the section entitled Acute radiation exposure)? This should be stated more clearly. PloniAlmoni (talk) 11:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a portion of a thought, so I removed it. 0¹⁸ (talk) 15:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Biological effects

So what happens to the various biological molecules when ionized by radiation? Rtdrury (talk) 01:12, 3 November 2008 (UTC)