History of radiation protection


Brief history of radiation.

ALARA: The History and Science of Radiation Safety

Michael Baumer
March 14, 2015

Submitted as coursework for PH241, Stanford University, Winter 2015

Introduction

Fig.

History of radiation protection

  • History of radiation protection in 1920s
  • Brief history of radiation
  • Radiation history timeline
  • When was radiation discovered to be harmful

    • 1: This plot compares the maximum doses to both radiation workers and the public as given in NRC regulations (orange bars) to other doses of interest. [4] (Courtesy of the NRC.)

    Not long after the discovery of ionizing radiation, it became clear that exposure to high doses of such radiation was detrimental to human health.

    Nowhere was this more starkly evident than after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second World War, when thousands of those who survived the initial blast were affected by radiation sickness, cancer, and birth defects in their future children.

    After the war, as the United States moved toward further investment in both nuclear weaponry and nuclear energy for civilians, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), la