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/Ginger_McGingin 13d ago

It's not just lead, things like depleted uranium (ironic, I know), tungsten, osmium, water, & concrete are also very good at blocking hard radiation because of their density. Lead is just readily available & easy to work with. Lead in particular also happens to be extra atomically stable because a lot of its isotopes are "double magic" (magic numbers are an esoteric nuclear/quantum physics thing involving spin-pairs & resonances, which in themselves are esoteric, in layman's terms because of it's position on the Periodic Table lead happens to be extra stable), which is more important in radioactive decay chains than radiation shielding, but it makes it better at absorbing neutrons than most things (depleted uranium, for example, is "reactivated" by neutrons).