Gamma Rays

[Etryter]

ok first off I am refering to the rays emmited by nukes (which I think are gamma rays if i remember correctly)

so I am watching Gundam Seed and they made a huge Gamma ray cannon and it shows people getting hit by it. So neways to make a long story short these peoples bodies started looking like marshmellows and exploded.

So that got me thinking what would happen if you were hit with a huge dose of Gamma rays? like by a nuke without all the explody crap, yes I always use scientific terms.

If my memory still works I think you just kind of desintigrate, assuming thats a word, or disapear if you will.

so if anyone knows wht happens plz post

 

[DrPizza]

I believe you turn green, and get really big, like the Incredible Hulk.

I'd answer you seriously, but I don't take anyone seriously when they spell "anyways" like this: "neways."
I had the good fortune to get to watch a video of what happens to people when hit by high frequency electromagnetic radiation (x-rays and gamma rays). The video was quite graphic and quite gory. But, it got its point across to be VERY careful in the lab when working with certain equipment.

So, when you edit your post to use grammar, spelling, and punctuation more appropriate for "highly technical," I'll be happy to tell you about the video and possibly provide some pictures of victims.

 

[Etryter]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I believe you turn green, and get really big, like the Incredible Hulk.

I'd answer you seriously, but I don't take anyone seriously when they spell "anyways" like this: "neways."
I had the good fortune to get to watch a video of what happens to people when hit by high frequency electromagnetic radiation (x-rays and gamma rays). The video was quite graphic and quite gory. But, it got its point across to be VERY careful in the lab when working with certain equipment.

So, when you edit your post to use grammar, spelling, and punctuation more appropriate for "highly technical," I'll be happy to tell you about the video and possibly provide some pictures of victims.

it's called dyslexia btw

 

[Cogman]

humm you did not say what would happen. First off, I have never seen it happen so I dont know for sure. But given the basis of what gamma radiation is, I believe that it would be a combination of a liquification of your organs and a raised temp (possibly to boiling). I dont think it would be quite as dramatic as a marshmellow, but it would be pretty bad. I must also say, This would have to be EXTREMLY high gamma radiation to do this, High amounts of radiation do large amount of damage, but usually it takes a while to take effect.

 

[Mark R]

I can't imagine that it would do much immediately other than cook - in a similar way to a microwave beam (although it would cook all the way through, not just the outside like microwaves do). If the beam was intense enough that it could cause explosive heating.

You would need an incredibly intense beam of radiation to do this, because gamma rays are highly penetrating, so most go straight through objects as if they weren't there,the remaining few get absorbed where they cause damage.

 

[Cogman]

Well, I dont think thats its the absorbsion that causes the damage, I think it is the fact that they break through and put holes in everything the go through (including DNA). But yes the beem would have to be increadably powerfull as even highly potent sources of radiation only feal warm and not boiling hot.

 

[DrPizza]

Gamma and X-ray radiation frequencies overlap by quite a bit on the electromagnetic scale... IIRC, the reason they're considered one or the other is because of their source, but essentially, it's the same radiation. Anyway... if someone received a massive dose of high frequency radiation, they really wouldn't feel a thing... at first. It will kill off all their cells in the area effected. It's incredibly gross - about a day later, the skin looks like it was in one of the worst fires imaginable, but at the time of exposure, the victim doesn't feel a thing.
Googlel for some pics.

 

[unipidity]

Indeed. Gamma rays are curiously not defined by their wavelength at all, but by source.... namely, a nuclear/annihilatory source. Just semantics really. Presumably there is some maximum energy x-ray, but I dont know where this nomenclature breaks down and you refer to things as gamma rays. If you dont know the source of a gamma-ray burst, then why are you calling it a gamma ray, etc?

Anyway; since its not going to be very ionising, youd need a much higher intensity source than with beta particles, for example, to cause similar damage. I think a nuclear bomb satisfies that though. If it were purely a gamma ray source, and didnt produce lots of other radiation, and wasnt a very high intensity.. then you wouldnt see anything straight away. Developing narcosis sounds reasonable, as cells die in a kind of normal distribution, and horrible cancers at non-immediatly lethal intensity.

Are there any lab suorces that are concivably lethal, any physisicts out there?

 

[DrPizza]

Yes. Or at least when I was in engineering.. scanning x-ray spectroscopy would be one example (if you were stupid enough to scan through some vital organs, (if you were stupid enough to remain in the room in the first place)

Also, there's a tremendous amount of high-energy radiation given off in particle colliders. I toured Cornell's loop last summer... they had some interesting experiments set up that utilized the radiation (which would have otherwise simply been allowed to be absorbed by the bedrock around the accelerator)

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

one quick look at the WWII picture archives of Hiroshima would give everyone a good idea..

its not pretty.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: JeremiahTheGreat
one quick look at the WWII picture archives of Hiroshima would give everyone a good idea..

its not pretty.

The Hiroshima effect on the victims was mostly thermal, the radiation effect was on the survivors (or the ones that survived only a couple of days/weeks)
The radiation total should be immense to create physical effects at the moment of exposure, the effects would be of biological nature and would affect later (but not much later).

Calin

 

[Bleep]

Here is good use of Gamma Rays
My wife had this done 2x and it works pretty good.
click here

Bleep