Originally Posted by
Mechanic688
Not sure why they posted those warnings on them back in the day,,, You don't see the warning tags on any later CRT tv's.
A cathode ray tube is a wimpy type of particle accelerator. The image on a CRT is made by steering a beam of electrons from the 'particle accelerator' across the back of the screen, which is coated with phosphor. When an electron hits the phosphor, the electron is converted into a photon (light). Some of the electons don't hit a phosphor and continue out in the direction of the couch potato. These low energy electrons are 'particles of radiation' They're sometimes called betas by those in the business. Those that escape the phosphor and the glass can travel up to maybe a dozen cm before hitting an air molecule. They can be stopped by things like air, skin, tissue paper, plexiglass, metal, almost anything. They (these beta particles) are a danger to eyes though, so if you watched too much tv, for too long a time, with your nose touching the tv screen, you might earn yourself some cataracts or other eye tissue damage. If my guess is correct, that's where the radiation warning comes from. There could possibly be slightly more exposure, if you worked behind the CRT, while the tv was on, and still more danger, if you did so in outer space (vacuum, no air to protect you from the radiation). I reckon they stopped with the radiation warnings after fifty years of nobody ever turning into a frog, or whatever else it is that people think radiation does to you.
That's not to imply that all radiation, or even all betas are benign, or harmless, just that televisions probably caused many times more injuries in the following ways:
- to people toes, and backs by being so heavy
- by electric shock to repairmen, or people trying to repair them
- by rare earth exposure to people breaking the CRT open and accidentally breathing phosphor
- by rotting the minds of couch potatoes watching them.
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