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by dreistdreist 3498 days ago
Things get contaminated by radioactive material, not by radiation exposure [0]. And of course obligatory xkcd [1].

[0] https://www.mirion.com/introduction-to-radiation-safety/radi...

[1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

1 comments

So, your biggest problem in a reactor cooling pool is "lead poisoning", eh? :-)

Anyway, worth pointing out that cosmic rays are little groups of neutrons (and adjoining protons). I don't know about the half life of the resulting products, though, or how often a heavy nucleus collides with another nucleus, vs simply bashing through electron bonds.