Radiation poisoning from wireless...

[mkrishnan]

Radio waves are non-ionizing, which means they cannot cause what is called "radiation poisoning".

Right... gamma rays are photons. The electromagnetic waves that the router emits are photons. Visible light is also composed of photons. The two core differences are the amount of energy each individual photon carries and the density of photons. In incredibly high densities, low energy photons can ionize... but really very few things besides specialized lasers can generate that kind of density. Alternatively, once you get into higher photon energies, like gamma rays and perhaps the higher end of x-rays, a single photon is powerful enough to ionize -- knock an atom in a solid into a higher energy state / knock it out of its place in the solid structure. This is primarily how radiation damages solid materials, including biological tissue.

Below the ionization threshold, all the EM radiation can do is heat up materials slightly and possibly in some special circumstances disrupt other electrical processes.

 

[dmw007]

Unless you're cradling it on your testicles, I would probably not worry about it.

Makes one wonder why it would be there in the first place....

 

[Counterfit]

that way you will live until you die,

Genius.
Also, try to avoid DHMO.

 

[4JNA]

wireless won't hurt you, but sitting in front of an average CRT for 40 hours per week over the course of a year is the same amount of radation as a chest x-ray. LCD monitors anyone?

 

[Jasonbot]

Now cellphones... Thats another rstory altogether!

 

[sunfast]

Right... gamma rays are photons. The electromagnetic waves that the router emits are photons. Visible light is also composed of photons. The two core differences are the amount of energy each individual photon carries and the density of photons. In incredibly high densities, low energy photons can ionize... but really very few things besides specialized lasers can generate that kind of density. Alternatively, once you get into higher photon energies, like gamma rays and perhaps the higher end of x-rays, a single photon is powerful enough to ionize -- knock an atom in a solid into a higher energy state / knock it out of its place in the solid structure. This is primarily how radiation damages solid materials, including biological tissue.

Below the ionization threshold, all the EM radiation can do is heat up materials slightly and possibly in some special circumstances disrupt other electrical processes.

When ionisation occurs the atom's place in a structure is not affected. Electrons are removed from the orbit of the atom by photo-electric or compton interactions. The atom is then said to be ionised.

The free electrons deposit their energy very rapidly in tissue over a short range as they are charged particles and undergo coulomb interactions in tissue. Photons are actually called indirectly ionising radiations as they don't deposit energy until they interact and course ionisation.

Irrespective of density there is still a threshold energy for photons to ionise an atom. They must have sufficient energy to overcome the binding energy of the electron released. This can be quite low in the case of an outershell electron in a high Z atom but then the interaction probability is greatly decreased.

Of course, this has nothing to do with a router!

 

[Rend It]

*Runs for my faraday cage*

YES!!

 

[ChrisA]

Hey,

I was wondering if wireless routers (namely the Airport Extreme Basestation) emits hazardous radiation? Should I be worried and place it a good distance from me?

Thanks!

Yes the router emits radiation as microwave energy. But you ask if it emits "hazardous radiation". I'd have to say "No". Microwaves can be
bad for you but the way radio energy causes harm is to heat body tissues. Frst the overall power is not enough to cause much heating and second the body conducts heat well (blood circulates) so if any small part was heated the heat would be conducted away before there could be a problem.

The router radiates only "milliwats" into the entire area. only a small fraction of those miliwats would hit a person even if standing close to the antenna.

If you want to worry about "radiation" Worry about the sun. It is a nuclear reactor so powerful if can burn your skin in only a few hours exposure and is a major source of cancer world wide. It's hard to believe someone was able to get the permits to build such a dangerous object as the sun.

 

[EricNau]

Now cellphones... Thats another rstory altogether!

Not really.

 

[mkrishnan]

Irrespective of density there is still a threshold energy for photons to ionise an atom. They must have sufficient energy to overcome the binding energy of the electron released. This can be quite low in the case of an outershell electron in a high Z atom but then the interaction probability is greatly decreased.

It really does have nothing to do with routers, but this is just false. You can fully strip atoms from the solid state with visible or near-visible light if you have a terawatt class laser and good focusing optics. You can even initiate nuclear fusion of deuterium.

 

[zap2]

I've had Wi-Fi for a while now, no side effects to date


Simply put, no its not a problem

 

[Grakkle]

The base station does emit electromagnetic radiation (not the radioactive kind, thankfully), but no more I imagine than your cell phone, cordless phone, microwave, radio, TV, powerlines overhead, etc, etc. There is radiation all around us.

True. The Airport base station hardly makes a difference when you consider that all sorts of radio waves and electromagnetic radiation are constantly passing through your body - much of it much stronger than what the Airport emits.

 

[TheDance511]

radiation??? thats what that lump on my head is from...ohhhhh....

 

[kill-your-tv]

Ever shut off a tv and see it glow? That's somthing to worry about. Not to mention the radiation when it's on. Even worse, the programs will kill you faster then the radiation.

 

[sunfast]

It really does have nothing to do with routers, but this is just false. You can fully strip atoms from the solid state with visible or near-visible light if you have a terawatt class laser and good focusing optics. You can even initiate nuclear fusion of deuterium.

Ok, you are right but I was assuming we weren't going into Quantum Optics! It's perfectly possible with visible and near visible light.

But I was referring to common EM and in-vivo tissue interaction which is of course a limited scenario outside of lab conditions and where, in practice, an ionisation threshold exists.

 

[displaced]

Non-ionising can still cause harmful effects but as a result of tissue heating.

This is true. I put a box of Kleenex next to my Airport Express and it burst into flames!

(Just kidding, clearly. It was actually a roll of Andrex)

 

[millar876]

there was a bloke on the tv the other day and he said that WiFi is about 100x LESS powerfull than a mobile (cell) phone and government here says that they are ok.

so unless you were one of these aparently "elecro sensative" people to whome radio waves hurt (hut only complain about wifi and not TV, Radio, satalite, or cordless landline phones) i wouldnt worry.

on a related point the "electrosensative" wooman they interviewed had on a radio mic, and had insulated her house against EM, so no signals could penetrate BUT had a Radio on her kitchen worktop???

 

[tominated]

i have had bloody gamma rays blasted at my head! i have nothing wrong with me (apart from short-term memory loss, attention span of a goldfish and the inablitity to filter out background noise). I had them for my brain tumor

 

[Maynerd]

Hey,

I was wondering if wireless routers (namely the Airport Extreme Basestation) emits hazardous radiation? Should I be worried and place it a good distance from me?

Thanks!

You should be very concerned. Please PM me if you would like me to take it off your hands, I'm willing to take on the risk to save your life.

 

[nutts]

iChernobyl anyone?

LOL!

At home I sit between a Netgear wireless router (soon to be supplemented with an Airport Express), a microwave, and a couple of DECT phones. So I think I'm screwed.

Still, at least I can see in the dark from the glow I emit

 

[Earendil]

Unless you're cradling it on your testicles, I would probably not worry about it.

Thank you. I was sitting here all happy like with my sleeping sick room mate behind me. And you had to go and say something that almost made me laugh my coffee out all over my powerbook. Awesome.

 

[Rend It]

It brings me joy to see a couple of non-physicists argue over the interaction of light and matter. Physics education really does pay off.

rendit