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GCSE Physics · key term
Ionising radiation that is always present in the surroundings, including when no deliberately placed radioactive source is nearby.
Used by AQA and Edexcel
Specification 4.4.3.1 · Paper 1
Ionising radiation that is always present in the surroundings, originating from both natural and artificial sources.
Revise: Background radiationEven when there is no obvious radioactive source nearby, detectors record a small amount of ionising radiation. This background radiation surrounds us all the time and comes from a mixture of natural and artificial, or man-made, sources.
Specification 6.12, 6.13, 6.14 · Paper 1
Revise: Background Radiation DefinitionA radiation detector may record events even when no radioactive source has deliberately been placed beside it. This ever-present ionising radiation in our surroundings is called background radiation. Its origins are considered separately; the essential idea here is that a detector does not normally give a reading of zero simply because the source being investigated has been removed.
Ionising radiation that is present in the environment even when no particular radioactive source has been brought nearby.
The radiation present in the surroundings even when the source being investigated is absent.
Define background radiation as radiation detected when no deliberately placed radioactive source is present; do not describe it merely as a reading that must be subtracted.
For a question about origins, name sources from both Earth and space rather than simply defining background radiation.
When comparing a source with background radiation, measure both over the same time or subtract their count rates.
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