Talk:Radioactivity

"When this decay occurs, the atom high-energy particles, some of which can be "ionizing" (the ones that kill things) and some of which aren't." is not a sentence. I will therefore delete it. Purple (talk) 03:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this could use a lot of work. It doesn't describe "radioactivity" so much as ramble on about "radioactive decay". Purple (talk) 03:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Cerenkov radiation.

Do radioactive thing glow in the dark? No, or at least it's rare. Radioactive things do not glow at all, unless mixed with a phosphor that will convert the nuclear radiation into visible light.[1] This myth probably originates from radium paint used on watch hands in the beginning of the 20th century, which were one of the first encounters of the general public with radioactivity. The light emitting substance in them is actually a non-radioactive phosphor excited by radioactive particles to emit light.

This is sort-of-correct, but highly energetic charged-particle radiation can create Cerenkov radiation. Glows. If you see this up close, you are in deep doo-doo. You can see this glow through the water of water-cooled reactors, there are some images on Wikipedia, article Cerenkov radiation. The glow is used, I think, to assess the remaining radioactivity of spent fuel rods.

In other words, some highly radioactive things do glow in the dark. In fact, this was a known characteristic of radium and the like, in the work of the Curies. From the Wikipedia article on radium: Because of such instability, radium is luminescent, glowing a faint blue.

That would be pure radium. A glow cannot be seen from the tiny quantity of radium found in watch hands, it is correct that this requires a phosphor conversion.

The absence of Cerenkov radiation from cold fusion experiments is one of the pieces of evidence limiting the energy or level of charged particle radiation in that work. The "Hagelstein limit" is 20 KeV, so there is little or no radiation above that energy level in CF cells. --Abd (talk) 21:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

What's "Cerenkov radiation"? I've never heard of it. Now if you want to discuss Cherenkov radiation, then that's something I know a little bit about. The Noisy Orchestra ^{Oi! Oi! Oi!} 21:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You bothered reading that? Sophie^{because liberals} 21:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

If only to correct the spelling in a dickish way, yes. The Noisy Orchestra ^{Oi! Oi! Oi!} 21:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Cherenkov may be more common. However, see [1]. I did look it up and found ample hits on "Cerenkov," which somehow seems more correct to my eye. RNS, what I wrote is well-known, and it was for the benefit of Tweenk, who seems to be a student of nuclear physics, and who had simply erred here. Everyone makes mistakes, and some are only spelling errors. If there is an error in what I wrote, I'd appreciate correction. It's how I learn. And you? --Abd (talk) 22:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking they're alternaive transliterations from the cyrillic Павел Алексеевич Черенков, as as it's obvious they're both about the same thing it doesn't really matter that much, as long as we have consistent spelling in the article - all one or all the other. Sophie^{because liberals} 09:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Neutron Radiation?

Do you not consider the emission of neutrons by a radioactive isotope to be a form of radiation?

If you do, then you will need to change your question called "Do things subjected to radiation become radioactive?" to be a "Mostly no, but sometimes yes" in the case of neutron irradiation. I'm at work right now, so I don't have a great deal of time to discuss.

The paragraph says "the exception is neutron radiation". There are no long-lived neutron emitting nuclides, so I think the statement is OK. Of the types of radiation that a typical person is remotely likely to encounter, none cause activation. --Tweenk (talk) 23:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)