Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

as I thought pair production is irrelevant in food irradiation

the tolerable limits in particle energies and doses are very high for truly tiny increases in induced radioactivity. its really marginal as long as the very conservative limits are respected.

see for example:

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_1287_prn.p...




Sounds good to me. From a medical standpoint, I'm aware that irradiated food is perfectly safe. It's the political utility of saying "no residual radioactivity" that I was focused on. But I guess positrons probably aren't much different from electrons in causing that.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: