Can WIFI give you cancer?

[Coco Pops]

Well if you watch current affairs TV here in Australia you'd think so. The last week or two two of our networks have been on a campaign of "WIFI gives you cancer"

A local school here has banned WIFI......

Hysteria or is someone making money off the fear?

[thekillman]

It doesnt. Eating a banana exposes you to more radiation than wifi

[Coco Pops]

It doesnt. Eating a banana exposes you to more radiation than wifi

Yep...... I think it's the potassium.....

Why are bananas radioactive?

[jelgate]

Yep...... I think it's the potassium.....

Why are bananas radioactive?

Their are many foods that have a slight radioactivity to them. That beer you want to drink has radioactivity. So does that steak I had for dinner last night. The amount are so small that you would die from alcohol poisoning long before radiation poisoning. People don't want to admit or know that we are constantly bombarded with radiation every day. Your computer or phone typing this emits radiation. The thing is that the amount or radiation from these devices is so low that statistically you are more likely to get cancer from another source than radiation. The same holds true for a wifi.

[Spimman]

*Burns computer*

[jelgate]

*Burns computer*

You are fighting a losing battle You can't burn everyone's computers

[Spimman]

You are fighting a losing battle You can't burn everyone's computers

It was PH's

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

WiFi can give you cancer in the way a camera can steal your soul...

[Spimman]

WiFi can give you cancer in the way a camera can steal your soul...

*Burns camera*

[jelgate]

But I don't have a soul. I sold it for a sandwich

[thekillman]

Yep...... I think it's the potassium.....

Why are bananas radioactive?

Because of isotopes. Carbon for instance has the common carbon-12 isotope. However, there is a more uncommon carbon-14 isotope which is radioactive. Since Carbon-14 is constantly replenished, the ratio of c-12 to c-14 is constant. When an organism dies the c-14 is no longer replenished. Measure the ratio, couple this to the halflife of c-14 and you know how old an organism is.

But that's hardly the only example. Just about any element you come in contact with has a radioactive isotope. These are very small percentages. The thing is, it's not harmful at all.

Lastly, the reason why WiFi and cellphones are harmless is because of the type of radiation. It's EM radiation. The sun also throws EM radiation at us including Infrared, visible light and Ultraviolet. The important part to remember here is that the wavelength determines the type and the energy of EM. Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light and radiowaves has a much greater wavelength than both. The WiFi signals that travel back and forth are not very energetic. The same is true for your cellphone and the radio in the room.

Lastly, EM by itself is extremely weak as a radiation form. They're non-ionizing, while ionizing is the kind of radioactivity you got to watch out for. Alpha and beta particles (helium nucleae respectively electrons) are the kind that knock an electron off a chemical, making it highly reactive. Your phone doesn't emit beta or alpha particles.

https://xkcd.com/radiation/

Above is a fairly reliable source. Eating a banana is rated at 0.1 microsievert, comparable to living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant for a year. Ironically, a coal power plant gives 3x the radiation dose (because coal is slightly radioactive). But fear not, an arm X-ray is ten time worse than a banana. you'd need to eat a hundred banana's a day to double your daily radiation dose from the cosmic background radiation.

So yea, WiFi is harmless. If it wasn't, we'd have noticed with stuff like oh, the copious amounts of huge radio towers we put up everywhere.



BONUS:

If you pay attention to the chart, you'll notice that radiation doses for medical treatments are not that bad. But if you get exposed to it daily it gets much worse, very quick. That's why the hospital personnel is behind lead and you're perfectly safe. It's not that the dose is bad, but the repetitive exposure to it is bad for them. They'd get hundreds of times the dose you get over time.

[The Flyattractor]

This is a silly thread. Everyone knows cancer was first created when Microwave ovens first came out in the mid seventies.

[Spimman]

This is a silly thread. Everyone knows cancer was first created when Microwave ovens first came out in the mid seventies.

*Burns microwave*

[The Flyattractor]

*Burns microwave*

*^ gets mutated into a jelgate clone by the radioactive fall out from the Microwave inferno*

[pookey]

Matty is a pyromaniac