Test your knowledge of radioactivity and its many uses with this informative qui...

Radioactivity and Its Uses

• Radioactive tracers contain a radioactive atom to allow easier detection and measurement, used in both medical diagnosis and non-medical fields.
• Radiotherapy is a common method for treating cancer, using gamma radiation to kill cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy cells.
• Carbon dating is used to determine the age of organic material, comparing the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in a sample to that in the atmosphere.
• Uranium dating is used to determine the age of rocks, comparing the ratio of uranium-238 to lead-207 in a rock.
• Radioactivity has many uses in industry, including smoke detectors, thickness gauges, and sterilization.
• External beam radiotherapy is a common method of delivering radiation to the tumor, focusing the radiation more precisely on the tumor and reducing the dose to healthy tissue.
• To determine the age of an object using carbon dating, the half-life of carbon-14 is used to estimate the amount of time since the organism died.
• To determine the age of a rock using uranium dating, the half-life of uranium-238 is used to estimate the amount of time since the rock formed.
• Smoke detectors contain a small amount of americium-241, a radioactive material that emits alpha particles to ionize the air, triggering an alarm when smoke enters the detector.
• Radioactivity is used in thickness gauges to measure the thickness of materials like paper or metal.
• Radioactivity is used in sterilization to kill bacteria and other pathogens on medical equipment or food.
• Radioactivity can be used to track the movement of substances through an ecosystem or a chemical reaction.