We’ll be getting a context for how radiation first appeared on earth….starting at the beginning.

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The creation of the universe has many theories as to how it began.

The most predominant is the “Big Bang” theory in which there existed a complex “soup” of energetic particles traveling at very high speeds and having a high density. The “soup” had different energetic particles including protons, neutrons, electrons, and pure energy at different frequencies.  The particles had two states:  matter and anti-matter. The temperature was so high that the matter and anti-matter could coexist without annihilation.

As the temperature began to drop, the matter and anti-matter interacted, annihilating themselves and expending pure energy, much of which was gamma radiation.

Through these annihilations, expansion began to disperse matter and energy, creating the big bang.

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The protons and neutrons began combining to create hydrogen and helium. These elements began attaching protons and neutrons, thus creating additional elements. Some of these additional elements were unstable, what we call as “radioactive.”  The fundamentals of nuclear science are also the fundamental to the basic theories surrounding the beginning of the universe.

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About 1,800,000,000 years ago, planet Earth had its first nuclear reactor “accident.”  Concentrations of enriched uranium formed a natural nuclear reactor at Oklo, Gabon, what is now Africa.  When the uranium became sufficiently concentrated, it achieved a “critical mass” meaning there was enough Uranium present to sustain a nuclear reaction – just like our modern nuclear reactors do today.  These reactions expelled great amounts of energy in the form of heat.  This core had elevated temperatures for approximately 200,000 years.