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Nuclear is for Life Paperback – January 1, 2015
by Wade Allison (Author)
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Is nuclear the answer to carbon-free energy? There is every reason to welcome it and none to reject it. Life has evolved protection against radiation, and high doses are used to cure cancer. Nuclear radiation is rarely life-threatening: for example, at Fukushima there was no radiation casualty at all. The evidence from such accidents, from medicine, from the physical and biological sciences - these all tell us that the increased use of nuclear should be safe and beneficial to life on an over-crowded planet. Current radiation regulations are not based on science: they come from 70 years of social reaction to a phobia. How did this happen, historically? This book provides explanations and answers to many questions. With an open informed culture, it concludes, nuclear energy could supply carbon-free electricity at low cost. Nuclear power should be freed from science-blind restrictions and so help save the planet as we know it.
This item: Nuclear is for Life
by Wade Allison
Paperback
AUD 34.76
Radiation and Reason: The Impact of Science on a Culture of Fear
by Wade Allison
Paperback
AUD 32.01
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Radiation and Reason: The Impact of Science on a Culture of Fear
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4.4 out of 5 stars 43
Paperback
AUD32.01
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Product details
Publisher : Wade Allison Publishing (January 1, 2015)
Language : English
ISBN-10 : 0956275648
ISBN-13 : 978-0956275646
Item Weight : 1.25 pounds
Dimensions : 9.13 x 0.94 x 6.22 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #2,419,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Customer Reviews: 5.0 out of 5 stars 10 ratings
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Biography
Wade Allison is a Fellow of Keble College and a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford where he has studied and taught for over 40 years. His earlier research work was in high energy physics, in particular the radiation field of relativistic particles, but his interests and expertise have spread much wider. Now he is concerned with medical physics and the choices facing mankind. First he published Fundamental Physics for Probing and Imaging, an advanced textbook for his course at Oxford on physics in medicine and the wider environment. Then he published Radiation and Reason, a carefully argued popular science book aimed at the pervasive (and unjustified) fear of radiation (and all things nuclear). He recently "retired" and lectures widely, for schools, academics and the wider public, in Oxford, around the UK and abroad. Then came Fukushima - no surprises for Wade, but panic for those who had not yet read Radiation and Reason! His third book, Nuclear is for Life, gives the evidence and tells the story in a wider historical and philosophical context. The science is easy, but the reaction of human society has been science-blind. Now Wade is working on his fourth book. It is about real science, he says. It is the one he wanted to write in the first place!
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Martin H. Goodman
5.0 out of 5 stars BEST book written informing of the biological effects of radiation on humans
Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2021
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First off... who am I to review this book? I am a physician and scientist. A mountaineer, backpacker, long distance cyclist, river rafter, I have all my life been an environmentalist. My political view of the world is that of a leftist who has long fought for social justice. I have decades of experience distinguishing between junk science and credible science, quack medicine and likely accurate and valid medicine in scientific and public papers.
This book, despite it's rather poorly chosen title (it's a revision of Wade's very wisely and well titled earlier work, "Radiation and Reason") is nothing short of brilliant. Outstanding. It is the best single source I've seen (and I've read many many dozens of such) for detailed information on the biological effects of radiation, with extensive presentation of many of the key studies that are the basis of all our knowledge of such.
Wade is a retired particle physicist, who spent years educating himself in medicine in general and epidemiology i in particular, in order to present to the educated public the facts concerning the biological effects of radiation. It is truly extraordinary. This book will likely challenge fixed beliefs of many who read it... but the challenge is in the form of the preponderance of intellectually honestly and well collected evidence.
This is one of the finest detailed presentations of complex science and medicine I have ever read.
ANYONE who wishes to be informed about how we should address climate change... about what energy policy makes sense for dealing with greenhouse gas accumulation and global warming... or who wishes to know what dangers radiation might poses, should read this book, cover to cover. It will dispel the myths and outright deliberate lies that are so often presented in the media concerning radiation. And replace ignorance and fear with a deep and thorough understanding of the facts. What more can one ask from a book intended to present facts of science and medicine to the public??
As Marie Curie famously said:
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
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TaxiDrivin' Daddy
5.0 out of 5 stars Who's afraid of the tiny, energetic gamma? Why??
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2018
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Easy enough for a bright 14 year old, Prof Allison writes how he firmly believes that popular concerns about radiation not only exaggerate fears but are nearly baseless! With minimal scientific terminology, he shares stories of exposure & results of studies which shows that dangerous radiation is very hard to encounter in our daily lives - in fact very few individuals ever will.
Prof Allison has previously published a textbook on this subject based on several years of teaching a class filled with a mix of medical & physics students. He knows this subject quite well, and we all can benefit from his expertise by merely reading.
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Jerry Cuttler
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book. I strong dose of reality
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2016
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Excellent book. I strong dose of reality.
3 people found this helpful
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U. Hoegg
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a "must read"
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2015
This book should have been an important input for the decision making processes at the World Climate Conference in Paris 2015, the Cop 21. But Nuclear Energy was not even mentioned there.
Wade Allison challenges the worldwide cultural attitude to nuclear science spread by media, political and other voices for the past 70 years.
However the US Chamber of Commerce on Nov. 15, 2015 submitted a high level petition to the US Nuclear Regulation Commitee to review these obsolescent historic standards. The petition could have been written by Wade himself.
The implications for future supplies of energy, fresh water and food are far-reaching for our polluted and crowded planet.
This book is an enlightening and thrilling must read.
4 people found this helpful
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R C Crane
5.0 out of 5 stars Whow! The 20th century slipped by so fast. ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2016
Whow! The 20th century slipped by so fast. We forgot to ask ourselves why we were anti-nuclear. We were mesmerised by Hiroshima and the Cold War. This book looks at the science. Someone who's worked in medical science. Someone who knows what radiation does to living tissue - or more correctly doesn't do: we have evolved over three billion years to handle low-level radiation. Wade Allison explains DNA repair processes, single strand breaks and double strand breaks, and apoptosis. Fukushima in a new light. This is literature for the 21st century.
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J Assheton
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant info - no nonsense (or non-science!)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 28, 2016
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I'm still reading this but it should put to bed the spurious rubbish that cause such fears over nuclear power and general safety about radiation. Governments have pandered to vocal people and groups about the "dangers of nuclear" when they (government and international bodies ) have made little or no efforts to really check the facts.
Saying radiation, that is ionizing radiation - i.e. anything with a shorter wavelength than uv sunlight, is bad for humans regardless of how little we receive, (called LNT - Linear Non Threshold), is clearly WRONG. Humans have evolved with radiation at 1000s of times the "legal limit" set, for the whole of past time. Go to Brazil or Northern Iran and people live quite happily with background radiation much higher than these limits.
Professor Allison should be applauded from the rooftops for this work.
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mr m sell
5.0 out of 5 stars The only way to save the planet.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2019
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If it's not already too late (climate change) we must start building nuclear reactors as quickly as possible and STOP burning fossil fuels.
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R. J. Macdonald
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 7, 2016
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A book everybody should read
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Vielleser
5.0 out of 5 stars Nuclear power is even better than I thought.
Reviewed in Germany on November 4, 2018
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As an advocate of nuclear energy I still was surprised to learn that my view on the dangers of radiation were too pessimistic. The one big problem we have is perception.
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U. Hoegg
5.0 out of 5 stars Ein wichtiger Beitrag zum Klimaschutz
Reviewed in Germany on December 2, 2015
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Rechtzeitig zum Klimagipfel in Paris berichtet Wade Allison (Oxford) über frappierende Erkenntnisse aus siebzig Jahren Strahlenforschung:
1. Gestaffelte Bestrahlungen sind wesentlich verträglicher als Einmaldosen.
2. Daraus folgt, dass die "Linear Non Threshhold (LNT)" Theorie, die von der lebenslangen Akkumulation aller Bestrahlungen ausgeht, nicht
haltbar ist.
3. Die daraus abgeleiteten internationalen Schutzempfehlungen sind dementsprechend viel zu niedrig.
4. In Fukushima hätte kein Mensch je evakuiert zu werden brauchen!
5. In deutschen Kernkraftwerken ist nie jemand durch Strahlung zu Schaden gekommen und, außer in Tschernobyl, auch global nicht.
6. Auf den Betrieb bestehender Atomkraftwerke sollten wir allein aus Klimagründen nicht vorzeitig verzichten.
Hunderte wissenschaftlicher Studien haben sich seit Hiroshima und Nagasaki mit den Kurz- und Langzeitfolgen von Strahlen in allen Bereichen des Lebens beschäftigt. Diese Studien und seine eigenen strahlenmedizinischen Beobachtungen dienten Wade Allison als Grundlage für obige Feststellungen. Er gelangt in diesem Rahmen zu der überraschenden Erkenntnis, dass relativ hohe Strahlendosen bis 100 Milli-Sievert pro Monat nicht gesundheitsschädlich sondern eher gesundheitsförderlich sind.
Das Spannende an Allisons Buch ist seine fachkundige Zusammenführung der physikalischen, biologischen und epidemiologischen Fakten mit den gesellschaftlichen und politischen Entwicklungen. Er macht die gegenwärtig bestehende allseitige Strahlenphobie verständlich und greifbar.
Dieses Buch ist eine geistige Herausforderung. Es ruft dazu auf, allen Vorbehalten und Emotionen unserer Zeit zum Trotz, logisch zu denken und sich bei dem heiklen Thema Kernstrahlung eine eigene persönliche Meinung zu bilden: "Is Nuclear really for Life?"
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