What colour is radiation? ☢️ – BBC

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20 comments
  1. This isn't accurate. Firstly, it depends on the meaning of radiation. In physics any electromagnetic wave (photons) can be referred to as radiation, including visible light, X-rays, gamma rays, microwaves, radio waves. Then the colour of radiation would be invisivle AND all rainbow colours. When we talk about radioactive substances, the radiation can describe either helium nuclei (alpha radiation), energetic electrons (beta-radiation), and energetic photons (gamma radiation). All of these are invisible. Cherenkov radiation is an after-effect of an interaction between a charged particle, usually electron, passing through dielectric medium like pure water. It is not the colour of radioactive particles.

  2. **Actually**, radiation as a term applies to all forms of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light. Visible light IS radiation. So technically radiation is every colour except black, plus others our eyes can’t discern 😅.

  3. Colour exists only in your imagination, not in reality. So radiation, of any kind, can be any colour. The Sun radiates trillions upon trillions of different wavelengths … our brains colour them in a way that makes them useful.

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