Radon Friedrich Ernst Dorn is the scientist who announced the discovery of radon, a noble gas. Frederick is a German chemist from the 19th century that studied radiums decay chain. There were a lot of names for radon before 1923 when it officially became radon, like niton a Latin word which means shining, another name for it was theorem emanation because the gas was discovered in theorem . Radon is a weak yet deadly gas that should never be underestimated.
Radon was discovered in 1900 by a scientist named Friedrich Ernst Dorn but it was not him that did the experiments. It was Robert B. Owens and Ernest Rutherford who did them at McGill University in Montreal. What they were originally doing was measuring the radiation levels of theorem oxide. But they noticed that it contained a radioactive gas that could be radioactive on its own for several minutes. They first called it theorem emanation then the name changed to radon in 1923. Radon till this day is still collected through the decay chain of radium. Radon is a very radioactive gas it is also colorless and odorless at room temperature. A common form of radons decay is alpha decay, alpha decay is not known to be a big radiological hazard since alpha particles that are produced from the process can be easily stopped. But although radon seems almost harmless it is still a gas and can be easily inhaled into living tissue where the body is exposed directly to the radiation. Even though Radon is radioactive its half-life is relatively short which is a good thing if any of it leaks out, radon can also be collected on dust particles and inhaled as well this poses for some concern as to how much radon is present within homes.
Radon is notorious for causing lung cancer every year it is estimated that Radon kills 20,000 people through lung cancer. This happens because of radon’s ability to be inhaled and directly expose the human body to the radiation it produces. It is estimated that 2 billion dollars are spent every year on treatment for radon-induced lung cancer. This is the very reason why people are so worried about radon and have to be conscious about it, radon levels are often checked because of its colorless yet odorless state this makes radon even more dangerous because of its ability to go undetected. To give you an idea of what radon can produce, picture an elementary school student who spends approximately 8 hours in school per day, 180 days per year sitting in a classroom with 4 pCi/L of radon. the student will receive nearly 10 times as much radiation as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow at the edge of a nuclear power plant. So even though radon has a very short half-life and delivers only a small amount of radiation at a time A consistent flow of radon can be really deadly or equivalent to other highly radioactive substances.
Radon to this day does not have many uses after all it's basically a radioactive gas that causes lung cancer but radon is still produced for therapeutic reasons in a few hospitals. In medical terms by pumping radon from a radium source and dispersing it into smaller tubes or containers otherwise known as seeding can be used to treat patients with diseases, but even this practice has been largely discontinued because hospitals are able to obtain the seeds from individual suppliers who can create the seeds for the daily treatment.
In conclusion radon is a very interesting element, known to be one of the weaker radio active elements, radon is notorious for causing lung cancer and is one of the leading causes for it. Radon kills thousands of people every year and costs Americans alone billions of dollars. Radon is also extremely harmful to humans when there is a constant exposure to it, people are even more susceptible to inhaling radon because of its odorless and colorless appearance in room temperature. Even though radon seems to be more harmful than useful radon is still occasionally used to treat patients with therapeutic illnesses. Radon shouldn’t be taken lightly but treated as if it were equivalent to any other highly radioactive element.