r/ChernobylTV • u/[deleted] • May 06 '19

Chernobyl - Episode 1 '1:23:45' - Discussion Thread

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u/mikelowski May 08 '19

So, can someone explain what happens when the fireman touches the graphite piece? Is it the atoms breaking like crazy? Why does it happen only by touching? Also, similar thing seems to happen to the guy holding the door from the core room (chernobyl hodor).

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u/Devar0 May 08 '19

Any form of radiation (light, microwave, alpha rays, beta rays, gamma rays, etc etc) follows an inverse square law.

Double the distance from a ray source, it is twice as "weak". And vice versa.

So because the firefighter picked it up with his hand, and it would have been at a distance of only a few millimeters away, the radiation exposure on that area was much more intense.

21

u/mikelowski May 08 '19

Ah, of course! I knew about the inverse square law of light, didn't realize other radiations follow this law too.