- #1
Jimmy87
- 686
- 17
Hi,
I have been asked to write a case study on this in class as one of the modules we are doing is radioactivity. There is tons of stuff online but I had a few specific questions that I would be grateful if someone could answer:
1) How would the assassins have carried the poison and how did everywhere get contaminated? They found a huge contamination trail around London and I just wondered how everywhere became contaminated - I would have guessed it was just dissolved in a liquid that they just poured in his tea so I don't get how the assassins got it all over them and it was everywhere they went e.g. on their British Airways flight seat, hotel room etc.
2) Why is alpha so dangerous? I know alpha particles are the most ionising forms of nuclear radiation but if it is stopped by your skin then even if you ingest it, is it not just as easily stopped inside your body? Or is it because the tissues are more delicate inside your body?
3) I am trying to write some stuff on radiation sickness. Would the poison have damaged DNA and created free radicals or would it have just outright killed the cells in the body?
4) In this documentary we were asked to try and watch, it says that alpha radiation triggers no alarms. I was just wondering what piece of equipment they were using in the documentary as they said they got a full scale deflection on the tea pot that Litvinenko drank from for alpha particles. How does it differ from a Geiger counter (as they said these don't really detect alpha particles) and what makes it much more sensitive for detecting alpha particles?
5) A bit of a political question but why is no-one in the British government doing anything more about this case? We were asked to watch the most recent and up to date documentary on this (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hunting-the-kgb-killers) which says that Scotland Yard found conclusive evidence and charged Andrea Lugovoy with murder. It says that they tried to extradite him to stand trial but they were denied by Russia. Why don't the British government do anything else? Someone has murdered a British citizen on British soil and they have been charged with murder by the Crown Courts. We ask for Lugovoy, Russia say no and that's it?
Thanks for any help answering any of these questions.
I have been asked to write a case study on this in class as one of the modules we are doing is radioactivity. There is tons of stuff online but I had a few specific questions that I would be grateful if someone could answer:
1) How would the assassins have carried the poison and how did everywhere get contaminated? They found a huge contamination trail around London and I just wondered how everywhere became contaminated - I would have guessed it was just dissolved in a liquid that they just poured in his tea so I don't get how the assassins got it all over them and it was everywhere they went e.g. on their British Airways flight seat, hotel room etc.
2) Why is alpha so dangerous? I know alpha particles are the most ionising forms of nuclear radiation but if it is stopped by your skin then even if you ingest it, is it not just as easily stopped inside your body? Or is it because the tissues are more delicate inside your body?
3) I am trying to write some stuff on radiation sickness. Would the poison have damaged DNA and created free radicals or would it have just outright killed the cells in the body?
4) In this documentary we were asked to try and watch, it says that alpha radiation triggers no alarms. I was just wondering what piece of equipment they were using in the documentary as they said they got a full scale deflection on the tea pot that Litvinenko drank from for alpha particles. How does it differ from a Geiger counter (as they said these don't really detect alpha particles) and what makes it much more sensitive for detecting alpha particles?
5) A bit of a political question but why is no-one in the British government doing anything more about this case? We were asked to watch the most recent and up to date documentary on this (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hunting-the-kgb-killers) which says that Scotland Yard found conclusive evidence and charged Andrea Lugovoy with murder. It says that they tried to extradite him to stand trial but they were denied by Russia. Why don't the British government do anything else? Someone has murdered a British citizen on British soil and they have been charged with murder by the Crown Courts. We ask for Lugovoy, Russia say no and that's it?
Thanks for any help answering any of these questions.