Strange Glow - The Story of Radiation -

Timothy J. Jorgensen

Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2016, ISBN 9780691165035

monograph, 490 pp, scope: general readership

Manuel Vogel, GSI Darmstadt and HI Jena

The word "radiation" has many negative connotations, in particular since the advent of nuclear
weapons and accidents in nuclear power production. Radiation is strange to humans because of their
inability to sense it. There is also a widespread notion that radiation is an inaccessible topic for the
layman, yet it is present in many areas of modern society. 'Strange Glow - The Story of Radiation'
gives a detailed account of the history of findings and developments connected with radiation in its
different forms. It shows that radiation was not always deemed dangerous, how radiation was
encountered, produced and dealt with during roughly the last two centuries, and aims at enabling a
wider audience to judge the risks as well as the benefits of radiation in various contexts of modern
society. The book consists of three parts. Part one ('Radiation 101: The basics') is an introduction to
the different forms and general properties of radiation. We learn that it comes as electromagnetic
radiation such as for example x-rays as well as in the form of ionizing particles of various sort, mostly
produced by nuclear decay of radioactive matter. We hear about the findings of Wilhelm Roentgen
and Thomas Edison who worked with x-rays, and about Henri Bequerel, the Curies and Ernest
Rutherford who worked with ionizing radiation from substances such as radium and uranium. Their
work in the late 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century was groundbreaking for modern
physics and won several of the first Nobel prizes. Their encounters with radiation were sometimes
harmful, and lessons would have to be learned. This is the guiding topic of the second part of the
book, 'The Health Effects of Radiation'. It describes the circumstances and consequences of the
different encounters with radiation throughout history, such as miners being exposed to radioactive
gases and ores, factory workers coming in close contact with radium as part of an industrial process,
and the merchandise of radioactive potions and the like in the 1920s, when radioactive substances
also were a subject of commerce. All of these are long-term encounters with relatively small doses.
The text also describes the effects of short-term encounters with high doses, both positive (such as
medical treatment with dedicated radiation) and negative (such as nuclear weapons and their
fallout). This includes a detailed and quantitative discussion of radiation measures and cancer risk, as
well as the biomedical background of radiation damage to the human body. The fact that radiation
can be extremely useful in medical applications such as diagnostics and treatment, and yet will
always be at least potentially harmful for humans, brings us to the third part of the book, 'Weighing
the Risks and Benefits of Radiation'. It puts into perspective the risks and benefits of exposure to
radiation from sources such as naturally occurring Radon gas, radioactivity accumulated in food and
background levels of radiation, when compared to man-made radiation, either purposefully as in
medical applications or unpurposefully as in nuclear accidents. Altogether, the text gives detailed
insight into the nature of radiation and the historical findings and developments, as well as a solid
basis for understanding the appearances and effects of radiation in modern society. It is very well
written in a colloquial style and does not require any specialist knowledge. It can be recommended
as a good read both for entertainment and scientifically based information to a general readership.