Blog-Like Thing

I actually saw this show in Seattle a few years ago, and the band didn’t move from their synths during the whole performance, except for a short portion where the humans were actually replaced by robots. It’s hard to think of this as a “live” show, but it was interesting regardless. And, for some reason, Maryjane seemed to have had a very strong presence in the audience, not that I partake. Anyway, this is Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity.

If anyone cares, radioactivity is the process by which unstable atomic nuclei release energetic subatomic particles. The word radioactivity is also used to refer to the subatomic particles themselves. This phenomenon is observed in the heavy elements, like uranium, and unstable isotopes, like carbon-14. Fascinating, right? So why should we care?

In small doses, radioactivity is actually a useful process that allows humans to do things such as generate heat. Radioactivity can also be useful in medicine, where drugs may be laced with radioactive atoms to trace their movement throughout the body. And radioactive decay can be studied to improve the quality of human existence in other ways. For instance, it’s radioactivity that allows for carbon dating, which in turn allows us to determine the age or once living organic materials. Pretty cool, right?

But in large doses radioactivity is a danger to all life on this planet. Many weapons have been designed and tested that can use radioactivity to kill people in tremendous numbers. Nuclear accidents and intentional nuclear explosions have already taken and affected many lives. One can only hope that those in power will understand, use, and apply radioactivity and related processes peacefully. Ha.

Oh, and just for the record, radioactivity was discovered by in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel, while working on phosporescent materials. Marie Curie actually continued the research to discover polonium and separate a new element radium (from barium). For more information on this read a book… or if you can separate the wheat from the chaff, google. It’s fascinating, I promise.

Why am I writing about this? Becuase I can’t sleep. Also, because I took a class on nuclear war once, quite a bit of time ago. It was fun, though I’ve forgotten most of what I learned. But I remember lots of neat equations and diagrams and stuff — a bit like studying chemistry, but with more of a focus. I always liked chemistry better than physics, anyway. Maybe I’d feel differently now. I wish I had the opportunity to find out…

–All original content in this post is by (c)BluHarmony with all rights reserved.

–All original content in this post is by(c)BluHarmony with all rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 4:01 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.