What Makes Radon Gas So Dangerous?
By Jason Channell, The House Sleuth
(Diadem Property Inspections - Serving Southeast Michigan)
We all have heard about radon, the colorless, tasteless, odorless gas produced by the decay of uranium and radium. But what makes it so dangerous? I'll attempt to answer that with as little science as possible. Radioactivity Yep, radon is radioactive. The word "radioactive" may conjure up nasty images in the mind, but what does that really mean for those of us who were daydreaming during Mr. Lavaque's seventh grade science class? Maybe a picture will help. We'll use a most simple element, hydrogen, in this explanation. At left we have an electron and a proton... no problem, it is stable. In the middle picture, we add a neutron. Again, no big deal, the hydrogen is stable. But in the picture on the right, we add a second neutron, and that throws things out of balance. The addition of ...
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