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smallerizeyesterday at 10:06 PM1 replyview on HN

How can the waste product be less radioactive if it has a shorter half-life?


Replies

dragonwriteryesterday at 10:15 PM

I guess if you abused terminology to scale by risk then, something decaying faster but by a different mechandism could be “less radioactive”, e.g., for external exposure, an alpha emitter with a shorter half-life might be “less (dangerously) radioactive” than a beta emitter (of course, the reverse would be true for internal exposure.)

Can’t really think of any other way to rationalize that combination.