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Friday, January 9, 2009
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Ionizing versus non-ionizing irrelevance

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It is important for educated people to remember that Maxwell's equations work for both high and low energy electromagnetic radiation.

While it is true that 'radiation', usually short for 'ionizing radition' is traditionally the purview of nuclear science, interaction of photons with matter doesn't stop at the soft x-ray end of the spectrum. It runs the whole gamut from x-rays to VLF radio waves.

Nuclear science has done a rather good job of demonstrating that a given energy of electromagnetic radiation interacts differently with various elements. (Also - different energies of radiation affect the same element differently.)
Witness the 'Barn Book'.

But as before, nuclear science only examined the energy bands above visible light. One can only wonder if such research was performed for energies below those levels such as visible light and wireless frequencies.

We can see that a microwave oven - a specified energy level radiation emittier - interacts differently with various materials such that certain materials such as bowls don't heat up, but liquids do heat up - quite convincingly.

By extension - what kind of interactions are we to expect with increased exposure to wireless frequency radiation? Has the level of study expended on the 'nuclear energy spectra' been expended on the 'radio energy spectra'?

It is in light of this thought experiment that the difference between ionizing (nuclear science spectra) radiation and non-ionizing radiation (wireless spectra) blurs and the difference is not relevant.

So perhaps the important point for lay people to understand is that high energy waves (like gamma and x-rays) affect nucleii and low energy waves (such as wireless radio) affect orbital electrons. And while we presently are aware that original ignorance of the nuclear spectra led to health problems, are we heading into a similar situation with over-use of wireless equipment?

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