Radiation and Reason: The Impact of Science on a Culture of Fear - Softcover

Allison, Wade

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0956275613 ISBN 13: 9780956275615

Publisher: Wade Allison Publishing, 2009

Synopsis

This is a positive and accessible account of the effect of radiation on life that brings good news for the future of mankind. For more than half a century the view that radiation represents an extreme hazard has been accepted. This book challenges that view by facing the question "How dangerous is ionising radiation?" Briefly the answer is that radiation is about a thousand times less hazardous than suggested by current safety standards. For many this will come as a surprise and then quickly raise a second question "Why are people so worried about radiation?" This is the out-of-date result of Cold War politics combined with a concern about radiation that was appropriate in an earlier age when the scientific understanding was limited. In the book these answers are explained in accessible language and related directly to modern scientific evidence and understanding, for instance the high levels of radiation used to the benefit of health in every major hospital. Four facts illustrate the need for a new understanding. 1. The radiation levels in the nuclear waste storage hall at Sellafield, UK are so low (1 micro-sievert per hour) that anyone would have to stay there for a million hours to receive the same dose that any patient on a course of radiotherapy treatment receives to their healthy tissue in a single day (1 sievert or gray). 2. The radiation dose experienced by the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs caused 0.6% to die of radiation-induced cancer between 1950 and 2000, that is about 1/20 of the chance of dying of cancer anyway and less than the chance of being killed on US highways in that period. 3. The wildlife at Chernobyl today is reported to be thriving, despite being radioactive. 4. The mortality of UK radiation workers before age 85 from all cancers is 15-20% lower than comparable groups. The case for a complete change in attitude towards radiation safety is unrelated to the effects of climate change. But the realisation that radiation and nuclear energy are much safer than is usually supposed is of extreme importance to the current discussion of alternatives to fossil fuels and their relative costs. Further information and downloads are available from http://www.radiationandreason. com

About this title

About the Author

Wade Allison is a Fellow of Keble College and a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford where he has studied and taught for over 40 years. His hobby is sailing. "Out there on the ocean far from land survival involves physics, and you are all on your own, like mankind on planet Earth" he tells his children and grandchildren. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he studied the Natural Sciences and Part III Mathematics. His graduate study at Oxford and his earlier research work was in high energy physics, in particular the radiation field of relativistic particles, but his interests and expertise have spread much wider. In 2006 he published Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging, an advanced textbook for his course at Oxford on physics in medicine and the wider environment. In 2009 he published Radiation and Reason, a popular science book aimed at the pervasive (and unjustified) fear of radiation. More available from http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/academics/about/professor-w-w-m-allison

From the Back Cover

A clear and positive scientific account of the effect of radiation on life that brings good news for the future of mankind.
For more than half a century the view that radiation represents an extreme hazard has been accepted. This book challenges that view by facing the question "How dangerous is ionising radiation?" Briefly the answer is that radiation is about a thousand times less hazardous than suggested by current safety standards. For many this will come as a surprise and then quickly raise a second question "Why are people so worried about radiation?" This is the out-of-date result of Cold War politics combined with a concern about radiation that was appropriate in an earlier age when the scientific understanding was limited.
In the book these answers are explained in accessible language and related directly to modern scientific evidence and understanding, for instance the high levels of radiation used to the benefit of health in every major hospital. Four facts illustrate the need for a new understanding.
1. The radiation levels in the nuclear waste storage hall at Sellafield, UK are so low (1 micro-sievert per hour) that anyone would have to stay there for a million hours to receive the same dose that any patient on a course of radiotherapy treatment receives to their healthy tissue in a single day (1 sievert or gray).
2. The radiation dose experienced by the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs caused 0.6% to die of radiation-induced cancer between 1950 and 2000, that is about 1/20 of the chance of dying of cancer anyway and less than the chance of being killed on US highways in that period.
3. The wildlife at Chernobyl today is reported to be thriving, despite being radioactive.
4. The mortality of UK radiation workers before age 85 from all cancers is 15-20% lower than comparable groups.

The case for a complete change in attitude towards radiation safety is unrelated to the effects of climate change. But the realisation that radiation and nuclear energy are much safer than is usually supposed is of extreme importance to the current discussion of alternatives to fossil fuels and their relative costs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wade Allison Publishing
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0956275613
• ISBN 13: 9780956275615
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 216