Although the discovery date of RADIOACTIVITY goes back even distant, humanity as a whole saw its pull in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. We know ordinary atoms cannot be disturbed like the ones in “Little Boy”. So what makes some particles so reactive to be used as mass destruction weapons? To understand that, let us use a silly analogy of fission.
Visual fission model
Fission is a DISTURBANCE reduction reaction.
We can roughly compare the fission reaction with an inn. Our innholder gets mad with a sudden noise when the drunk playing on the street gets into their inn. In the face of this unfair and unexpected event, the innkeeper loses their balance and becomes more indecisive than angry (The brief time span when the nucleus is disturbed but doesn’t emit any radiation). When the drunks bother and start a fight in the inn, he gets mad as he barely manages the inn with overwhelming customers. Because he is outraged, our nervous innkeeper sends the drunks out quite hard so that the drunks find themselves face to the ground. Now innkeeper’s nerves are relaxed, and he is ready to continue his everyday work again. In this simple analogy, inn represents the atomic nucleus while the customers are the internal energy, protons and neutrons. Drunkards are excessive and problematic “disturbances”. The analogy may sound too simple, yet it captures the energy conversion intuitively. E.g., the innkeeper will throw the most problematics first (drunks) and then, if he is still in a rage, sobers.
For fission, uranium in nature must be enriched. This enrichment is accomplished by neutron bombardment (Drunks). Neutrons are also scattered during fission everywhere.
While our ordinarily calm and well-behaved core continues casual and straightforward, we spoil it with the neutrons we throw at it. The neutron/proton balance is disturbed in the nucleus, and the nucleus splits itself in two with the fission reaction to maintain the equilibrium. Since some matter is lost during fission, exquisite energy is left behind (E=mc²).
After these high-impact results of the innkeeper, people developed nuclear (core) power plants to solve one of their ongoing problems, energy. Although there are many different ways of functioning, it generally aims to produce energy from turbines rotating with steam obtained by immersing radioactive rods in the water (Innkeeper’s fury boils tons of water). Due to the radioactive events in this process, the water is inevitably affected and changed. It gains a different configuration. Neutrons scattered (Some sobers also disbanded with the drunks) adhere to water molecules from radioactive material.
Adding one more neutron to the ordinary single-proton hydrogen creates deuterium. About 0.0156% of hydrogen atoms in the world’s oceans are deuterium (Helmenstine, 2020). When our ongoing energy processes are added, we see that the number of deuterium in the world increases day by day.
Normal water molecule
In other words, exposure to heavy water increases for everybody. So why is this important? The increased deuterium adds to the structure of the water and makes it heavier. That creates heavy water in the world because of the more massive called semi-heavy water and heavy water (deuterium oxide). The increasing amount of heavy water joins the water cycle and leaves no places unvisited. They are in the water you are currently drinking, even in the humidity of the air you breathe.
Heavy water molecule
Could there be a significant correlation between the increase in radioactive water created by humanity as waste with nuclear technologies and the growth rate in the number of patients today? Researchers have found that high concentrations of heavy water negatively affect living things (Kushner et al., 1999). It shows that the trend towards increasing nuclear energy production will increase the rate of heavy water in the world. Luckily, for now, heavy water seems like a negligible threat to weigh losing aimed programs because most of the water molecules in our planet are not diagnosed with obesity!
In summary, we are in close contact with the by-products formed due to radioactivity. And thanks to one of our most essential consumption compounds: water. Enjoy the aromas of radioactivity in a glass of water in front of you.
Note: People cannot distinguish the taste of isotope water from ordinary water. In other words, you cannot determine the aroma of isotope water from ordinary water.
Reference
Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. (2020, August 25). Deuterium Facts. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-deuterium-607910
Kushner, D. J., Baker, A., & Dunstall, T. G. (1999). Pharmacological uses and perspectives of heavy water and deuterated compounds. Canadian Journal of physiology and pharmacology, 77(2), 79–88.
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