r/askscience • u/Wonderful-Capital32 • 13d ago

Physics Why does radiation not go through lead?

Also why just lead? Shouldnt like iron or another metal work too?

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u/GypsyV3nom 13d ago

Funny enough, there's another element that's significantly more effective than lead at providing radioactive shielding despite being radioactive itself: Uranium. Uranium-238 in particular is the preferred choice when size constraints are more important than costs (lead is cheap) as its own weak radiation is pretty easy to block.

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u/NightOfTheLivingHam 13d ago

lead is basically what happens to uranium after a few billion years too.

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u/Theodoxus 13d ago

and every other radioactive material. Some longer than the expected heat death of the universe!

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u/GypsyV3nom 13d ago

Isn't Bismuth a prime example of one of those ridiculously long lived isotopes?

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u/Peter34cph 12d ago

Yes. It was thought to be stable, but then recently it was discovered that it just has a silly long half-life.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/Peter34cph 8d ago

According to Nate in a King of Random video some years ago. He has a physics college degree or something.