Radiation Protection Glossary
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In effect means:- 'how much Radioactive material' - in terms of rate of transformations where 1
Becquerel (Bq) =1 transformation per second. Therefore, for 1MBq of activity the disintegration rate will be 1,000,000 transformations per second. The non-SI unit of activity is the
Curie (Ci) where 1Ci = 37 GBq (i.e. 37,000,000,000 transformations per second). Note that the rate does not represent the number of particles emitted per second – take Cobalt-60 (Co-60) for example, each decay produces two
gamma ray photons per disintegration.
