USES OF RADIOACTIVITY/RADIATION

After reading this section you will be able to do the following:

• List and describe uses of radioactivity/radiation.

There are many practical applications to the use of

radioactivity/radiation. Radioactive sources are used to study living
organisms, to diagnose and treat diseases, to sterilize medical
instruments and food, to produce energy for heat and electric
power, and to monitor various steps in all types of industrial
processes.

Tracers

Tracers are a common application of radioisotopes. A tracer is a

radioactive element whose pathway through which a chemical
reaction can be followed. Tracers are commonly used in the medical
field and in the study of plants and animals. Radioactive Iodine-131
can be used to study the function of the thyroid gland assisting in
detecting disease.

Nuclear reactors

Nuclear reactors are devices that control fission reactions

producing new substances from the fission product and energy.
Recall our discussion earlier about the fission process in the making
of a radioisotope. Nuclear power stations use uranium in fission
reactions as a fuel to produce energy. Steam is generated by the
heat released during the fission process. It is this steam that turns
a turbine to produce electric energy.
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Other uses of radioactivity

Sterilization of medical instruments and food is another common

application of radiation. By subjecting the instruments and food to
concentrated beams of radiation, we can kill microorganisms that
cause contamination and disease. Because this is done with high
energy radiation sources using electromagnetic energy, there is no
fear of residual radiation. Also, the instruments and food may be
handled without fear of radiation poisoning.

Radiation sources are extremely important to the manufacturing

industries throughout the world. They are commonly employed by
nondestructive testing personnel to monitor materials and processes
in the making of the products we see and use every day. Trained
technicians use radiography to image materials and products much
like a dentist uses radiation to x-ray your teeth for cavities. There
are many industrial applications that rely on radioactivity to assist
in determining if the material or product is internally sound and fit
for its application.

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (14 September 1736 – 23 August
1806) was a Frenchphysicist. He is best known for
developing Coulomb's law, the definition of the electrostatic force of
attraction and repulsion. The SI unit of charge, the coulomb, was
named after him.
Life
Coulomb was born in Angoulême, France, to a well-to-do family. His
father, Henri Coulomb, was inspector of the Royal
Fields in Montpellier. His mother, Catherine Bajet, came from a
wealthy family in the wool trade. When Coulomb was a boy, the
family moved to Paris and there Coulomb studied at the
prestigious Collège des Quatre-Nations. The courses he studied in
mathematics there, under Pierre Charles Monnier, left him
determined to pursue mathematics and similar subjects as a career.
From 1757 to 1759 he joined his father's family in Montpellier and
took part in the work of the academy of the city, directed by the
mathematician Augustin Danyzy. With his father's approval, Coulomb
returned to Paris in 1759 where he was successful in the entrance
examination for the military school at Mézières.
After he left the school in 1761, Coulomb initially took part in the
survey for the British coastal charts and was then sent on a mission
to Martinique in 1764 to take part in the construction of the Fort
Bourbon under the orders of the lieutenant-colonel of Rochemore, as
the French colony was insulated in the middle of the English and
Spanish possessions following the Seven Years' War. Coulomb spent
eight years directing the work, contracting tropical fever. He carried
out several experiments on the resistance of masonries and the
behaviour of the walls of escarpe (supportings), which were inspired
by the ideas of Pieter van Musschenbroek on friction.
Upon his return to France, with the rank of Captain, he was employed
at La Rochelle, the Isle of Aix and Cherbourg. He discovered an
inverse relationship of the force between electric charges and the
square of its distance, later named after him as Coulomb's law.
In 1781, he was stationed permanently at Paris. On the outbreak of
the Revolution in 1789, he resigned his appointment as intendant des
eaux et fontaines and retired to a small estate which he possessed
at Blois. He was recalled to Paris for a time in order to take part in the
new determination of weights and measures, which had been
decreed by the Revolutionary government. He became one of the first
members of the French National Institute and was appointed
inspector of public instruction in 1802. His health was already very
feeble and four years later he died in Paris.
Coulomb leaves a legacy as a pioneer in the field of geotechnical
engineering for his contribution to retaining wall design.
Research
In 1784, his Recherches théoriques et expérimentales sur la force de
torsion et sur l'élasticité des fils de metal[1] (Theoretical research and
experimentation eons of different torsion and the elasticity of metal
wire) appeared. This memoir contained the results of Coulomb's
experiments on the torsional force for metal wires. His general result
is,
"... the moment of the torque is, for wires of the same metal,
proportional to the torsional angle, the fourth power of the
diameter and the inverse of the length of the wire..."
It also contained a detailed description of different forms of
his torsion balance. He used the instrument with great success
for the experimental investigation of the distribution of charge on
surfaces, of the laws of electrical and magnetic force and of
the mathematicaltheory of which he may also be regarded as the
founder.

Coulomb's torsion balance

In 1785, Coulomb presented his three reports on Electricity and
Magnetism:
- Premier Mémoire sur l’Electricité et le Magnétisme [2]. In this
publication, Coulomb describes "How to construct and use an
electric balance (torsion balance) based on the property of the
metal wires of having a reaction torsion force proportional to the
torsion angle." Coulomb also experimentally determined the law
that explains how "two bodies electrified of the same kind of
Electricity exert on each other."
- Deuxieme Mémoire sur l’Electricité et le Magnétisme [3]. In this
publication, Coulomb carries out the "determination according to
which laws both the Magnetic and the Electric fluids act, either by
repulsion or by attraction."
- Troisième Mémoire sur l’Electricité et le Magnétisme [4]. "On the
quantity of Electricity that an isolated body loses in a certain time
period, either by contact with less humid air or in the supports
more or less idio-electric."
Four subsequent reports were published in the following years:
- Quatrième Mémoire "Where two principal properties of the
electric fluid are demonstrated: first, that this fluid does not
expand into any object according to a chemical affinity or by an
elective attraction, but that it divides itself between different
objects brought into contact; second, that in conducting objects,
the fluid, having achieved a state of stability, expands on the
surface of the body and does not penetrate into the interior."
(1786)
- Cinquième Mémoire "On the manner in which the electric fluid
divides itself between conducting objects brought into contact and
the distribution of this fluid on the different parts of the surface of
this object." (1787)
- Sixième Mémoire "Continuation of research into the distribution
of the electric fluid between several conductors. Determination of
electric density at different points on the surface of these bodies."
(1788)
- Septième Mémoire "On magnetism" (1789)
Coulomb explained the laws of attraction and repulsion between
electric charges and magnetic poles, although he did not find
anyrelationship between the two phenomena. He thought that the
attraction and repulsion were due to different kinds of fluids.