There are a bunch of scare campaigns going around about the coming of the new telecommunications standard 5G.
There’s a petition going around right now claiming that it will involve “concentrated and focused electromagnetic radiation far greater than current levels and will result in a massive increase in inescapable, involuntary exposure to wireless radiation.”
Except the 5G rollout doesn’t involve using scary new tech. It involves using a wider range of the radio spectrum, mainly bits of it which have been previously used for different communications and broadcast. And… um, that’s it.
But if you’re worried about the terrifying claims of high-radiation broadcasts causing cancer by shameless tech companies who only seek profits over human life, man, then we have some good news: it’s complete garbage.
Why ? The short answer is physics.
Light comes in a bunch of different wavelengths, which is a fancy way to say “some wiggle a lot more because they carry loads of energy”.
Some wavelengths of light wiggle powerfully enough to actually penetrate skin and do damage to cells – gamma rays, for example. Beneath them are x-rays, and then less-powerful ultraviolet light (the thing that gives you sunburn).
Weaker yet is visible light. That’s not strong enough to penetrate your skin, and the way you can prove that is by noticing that you’re not invisible.
Visible light can’t do any damage because it’s just not wiggling powerfully enough to get into you and get cancer-busy.
Radio waves are even weaker than that, and 5G (and all mobile phone transmission, and broadcast transmission, and wi-fi) uses radio waves.
More specifically, 5G will be operating around the 15 gigahertz range while visible light is up in the 400 to 750 terahertz spectrum. In other words, a lightbulb is emitting radiation which is several orders of magnitude more powerful than 5G and it’s still nowhere near strong enough to get past the dead cells in the top layer of your skin.
Those long-but-weak wavelengths are great for communication because they travel a long way using very little energy, but the downside is that they don’t penetrate stuff at all well, as you’ve discovered every time you’ve been on a phone call or listening to the radio when driving through a tunnel.
So: unless you’re suddenly rendered invisible and therefore having really low energy wavelengths of light penetrate you, you’re totally immune to 5G.
Honest. You’re all good.