[Symmetry]

It's unfortunate that we only have one vocabulary for radiation to cover both a 100 uS dose of fallout and a 10 S one. If a quantity of rock drops on someone we have different words like "pebble" and "boulder" that tell us how concerned we should be. I was shocked to learn that "fallout" in the context of a nuclear war could mean something that could cause you to die in hours, not raise your lifetime risk of cancer somewhat.

[MomsAVoxell]

I guess we don't have the language because we don't have the experience.

Perhaps we should tune into what the Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors use to describe things. I seem to recall they had various phrases for different kinds of fallout ..

[Symmetry]

There actually wasn't any appreciable fallout after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Fallout is mostly generated when a bomb explodes close to the ground so that its neutrons are able to reach and transmute that ground into radioactive isotopes. The bombs dropped on Japan exploded high up to affect as large an area as possible. Many people suffered terribly from the ionizing radiation produced by those bombs, but all that damage was inflicted in the first microseconds immediately after the bombs detonated.

[MomsAVoxell]

Right, it was radioactive rain I am remembering someone describing to me when I was in Tokyo, discussing the subject. Not strictly fallout.

I remember there was some controversy over whether folks who were exposed to the black rain were eligible for health and medical support, and what constituted 'black rain' versus 'normal rain' and all the wide spectrum between ...