In a recently aired television series, there was a scene in which national security personnel used radioisotopes when tracking down suspects. So can radioisotopes really be used to track down suspects? Jiangsu Provincial Disease Control Experts made an interpretation.
Radioisotopes are nuclearly unstable, radioactive nuclides. For example, radium-223, radium-224, radium-226, and radium-228 are all radioactive, and each element occupies only one block in the periodic table, so it is called isotope. Each radionuclide has a different lifetime, emits different rays, and the energy of the rays varies. The decay of isotopes is not affected by any factor, no means can speed up or slow down its decay, nor can it change the energy of its rays, so radioisotopes are a very good research tool in scientific research.
In fact, isotope tracing, also known as isotopic markers, is a technique that uses radioactive isotopes to help scientists track, but the suspects scientists track are not someone. By replacing atoms of a particular substance with radioactive isotopes, scientists can track where that particular substance went. In industry, for example, oil exploration uses isotope tracing to measure the geological structure of oil wells. In the metallurgical industry, steel smelting can use isotope tracing to determine the degree of corrosion of the blast furnace wall. The machinery industry uses isotopic tracers to detect leaks in vacuum systems.
In agricultural applications, scientists use isotope tracing to study fertilizer efficiency. The mechanism of plant photosynthesis was studied by radiocarbon-14. In medicine, the radiocarbon-14 breath test is the gold standard for testing For Helicobacter pylori infection. ECT and PET/CT use radioisotopes to help doctors check for cancer.
Radioisotope tracing in the field of environmental engineering can help scientists study the distribution and enrichment of pollutants. Radioisotope tracing is a very important technical means, and the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his creative use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes.
From a technical point of view, there are machines that can see where the radioactive isotopes are. People with radioactive isotopes can be clearly distinguished from others. Radioisotopes with higher radiation energies can even be seen across container containers.
However, such an instrument requires two conditions, one is that the ray itself is sufficiently penetrating and strong, and the other is that the distance between the detector and the ray source is close enough. If the ray source itself is too weak for the detector to capture, if the ray penetration is not enough, the ray is easily blocked by various objects and cannot reach the detector. Even if the detector can be measured, its sensitivity decreases rapidly as the distance from the radioactive source increases. Therefore, this method is only suitable for use at a very close distance in reality, generally no more than a few meters.
If you want to measure radioactivity from 300 meters away, as in the play, you need to drop a lot of radioactive isotopes. The large amount of radioactive material is not only sufficient to endanger the health and life of the suspect, but also to the innocent people around them and the staff on the mission.
The State stipulates that the use of radioactive materials must follow three basic principles to ensure the safe use of radioactive sources. The first is the legitimacy of radiological practice activities, which are only justified when the benefits to the individual or society to whom they are treated are sufficient to compensate for the radiation hazards they may cause, having taken into account socio-economic and other relevant factors. The second is to optimize so that, after taking into account economic and social factors, the size of the individual's dose, the number of people being irradiated, and the possibility of exposure are kept at the lowest possible level that can be reasonably achieved. Article 3 In non-medical environments, individual dose limits should be observed.
It is difficult to justify the scenes in the TV series, and even if they are justified, they will almost certainly not meet the requirements of individual dose limits, which will cause serious harm to the surrounding people, the suspects themselves, and the staff who use the radioactive sources.
Finally, we should remind everyone that some TV series are in the need of the plot, and some technical plots will be exaggerated, and must not be blindly accepted.
The unauthorized use of large quantities of radionuclides causing death, death, and significant damage to property may constitute the crime of releasing dangerous substances and will face imprisonment of not less than 10 years, life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Yangzi Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Yang Yan
Proofread sheng yuanyuan
Source: Purple Cow News