Do you think the longer something is radioactive, the more dangerous it is?

Radiation comes from the decay of large atoms into smaller atoms. Since each atom can only decay once, there is a fixed amount of radiation that will come from a given amount of material. The longer it has been radioactive, the less radioactive material is left.

The time scale for this varies depending on what type of radioactive material you start with. Uranium decays very slowly, so it will remain dangerous for a long time.

In general, cumulative dose is what will kill you, so whether you're exposed to 30 rem over 1 day or 10 days, the result is nearly the same.

But your body can recover from some minor radioactive damage, so that 1mrem/day of background radiation isn't likely to harm you.

So I guess if you had to expose me to 30rem of radiation, I'd rather that you do it over my 75 year lifetime rather than in one day. Over 75 years that 30rem is just an additional 400mrem/year. In comparison, a worker in the nuclear field is allowed occupational exposure of 5000 mrem/year.

Amy, it's not true that each atom can only decay once -- Uranium goes through a dozen or more transitions in its decay chain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Radium_se...

Not exactly. Danger from radiation is a function of time of exposure, intensity of the source of radiation, distance from the source, the type of radiation, and the shielding between the person, and the source. If all other factors are equal, a source with a longer half life will be more dangerous than a source with a shorter half life. But you knew all that and just hoped to make people appear ignorant. A foolish game.

No Safe Dose:

http://www.nirs.org/radiation/radtech/nosafedose07...

(US Radiation Commission)

the only way for something to be radioactive is for it to decay and emit radioactive isotopes so by its very nature the longer it radiates that less radioactive it is.

I want to like live in radioactive environment.....