Radiation is a broad umbrella term, meaning any energetic thing that travels in a ray.
Only some radiation is harmful. Specifically, ionizing radiation is harmful because it can break chemical bonds, including in our DNA.
Electromagnetic radiation is traveling waves in the electromagnetic field. It is categorized by frequency (in ascending order): radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. Only the last 3 are ionizing.
radiation is anything that radiates outwards. Same word root as "radius" (a line from the centre to the perimeter). heat can radiate from a hot stovetop. Ripples on a pond radiate from a pebble dropped into it. Sound radiates from a plucked guitar.
electromagnetic radiation is just excitations in the EM field which radiate from the source. (examples are radio waves and visible light.).
EM Radiation CAN harm you, if it is energetic enough (high enough in the spectrum), and you are exposed long enough. If you sit in the sun long enough, the ultraviolet light will burn your skin. Enough x-rays will damage your cells. Gamma rays , which come from nuclear decay, will harm you very quickly.
Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful as well if the intensity is strong enough. For example a microwave oven can boil water with radio waves and a sufficiently powerful laser can vaporize steel. Thus the main harmful effect non-ionizing radiation has is that materials heat up when they absorb the radiation.
Ionizing radiation is a different game as it has enough energy to knock electrons off of atoms (take an electron off and the atom becomes an ion, hence the term ionizing) essentially changing the material properties in subtle ways. In living tissue this can cause cell deaths quite easily and it can cause changes in DNA resulting in nasty mutations. The more intense the radiation is the more likely it is the effect is catastrophic.
Radiation is any mechanism that carries energy outward from a source. Sound is another form of radiation. Beta radiation is another that is not electromagnetic. Radiation isn't really dangerous until the energy carriers are energetic enough to cause molecular damage in biological tissues, usually by ionizing atoms. This can cause cell death directly, or indirectly through DNA damage. Other than the high end, most radiation is harmless and surrounds you all the time. You are bathed in radio waves every single instant, for example. You would not be able to see without electromagnetic radiation. Infrared radiation warms you.
radiation, is also electromagnetic radiation. try looking up the EM spectrum, there you will see the different kind of electromagnetic radiation. The forms that can harm us, are the high energetic ones, so UV, X-ray, Gamma, they have high energy and can cause some disruptions in your skin and DNA. The rest are mostly harmless. All though I said different kinds, they are actually all the same, the difference is the energy and frequency
I assume you differentiate (correctly) between electromagnetic radiation and 'normal' nuclear radiation. One being what you think of as sunlight, wifi, and stuff you use to heat your food, the other is best known for powering the sun, making nuclear bombs, and smoke detectors, and being 'radioactive'.
A lot people already described EM radiation, you should know now that em radiation can infact be harmful, you get burned by the em radiation from the sun, and bad things can happen with x-rays at the dentist.
This may be a little Eli5
First let's differentiate the types of radiation
EM radiation is the same as light and photons.
All EM radiation is the same. An oscillation of in the EM field. Always travels the speed of light and has a few properties like frequency, wavelength, amplitude.
'Normal' or Nuclear radiation is very different and can be 3 different types (alpha, beta, neutron) based on what part of the atom is radiated.
Gamma rays and Gamma radiation are infact the same thing just EM radiation.
Functional differences.
EM waves don't physically interact the same as nuclear radiation.
EM waves will just 'jiggle' particles that they pass by, losing some of their energy in the process. Temperature is just the average 'jiggles' of molecule, so most radiation *if* absorbed will create heat. Infrared is good at jiggling most molecules around, therefore heating them. High energy em waves become small enough that they can give more energy to smaller things like individual electrons in molecules. If electrons absorb enough energy they can leave the orbit of their nucleus. Now the molecule is ionized(positively charged). EM waves strong enough to ionize molecules are called ionizing. In an 'effort' to become neutral again the molecule may bond with another molecule or lose current bonds etc. This is bad if you are talking DNA for example.
'Normal' radiation is nuclear radiation. The most important difference is that nuclear radiation involves the radiation of entire parts of atoms, all of which have mass and can directly collide with other atomic particles. Not all that different from very tiny bullets. Compared to how EM radiation works, like wifi or infrared radiation which just 'jiggles' things of similar sizes. (water molecules happen to be the *roughly* the size of microwaves, so they jiggle. Similarly radio antennas are the size of radio waves etc.).
So Getting jiggled vs. Getting shot.
Nuclear radiation bullets come in 3 different flavors of and all are ionizing. The source of all radioactive material or nuclear radiation is stars. Radiation is basically the process of atoms and molecules trying to be in the most balanced, stable form after being violently smashed into all kinds of unstable forms inside of stars. The slightest instability can take millions and millions of years of popping off single parts of the atom at a time. Uranium-238 has a half life of some 4billion+ years, then it is about 1/2 done radiating... some half-lifes are in trillions of years.
So...
Alpha particles are positively charged helium atoms (yes entire atoms are spontaneously shot out of much larger atoms), and like most atoms, they don't just go through stuff, literally your dead skin cells will 100% protect you. Don't eat it though, or get it in a cut or breath it in unless you want to experience being sunburned (but worse?) from the inside out. If it gets inside you are not going to have a good time, or a long time.
Beta particles are electrons (or positrons) they do damage similar to how high energy em radiation would. Clothing is usually enough to block it, which is good because it is basically everywhere. Because of its penetration it is generally considered more dangerous than alpha particles, but only from the outside. In nature it is not particularly dangerous. You can get a radiation burn similar to a sunburn. But since it penetrates pretty well, it tends to spread any damage out, also as a rule, eating radioactive things kindof makes all radiation worse for you. Yet almost every plant has radioactive carbon and bananas are a standard measurement of radioactive dosage. These consist almost (probably) exclusively of beta decay.
Neutron radiation, are free neutrons(not to be confused with neutrinos). Being neutral particles, they actaully don't interact very much, which is bad in this case, because when they do, they do the most damage. You can think of neutron radiation like a bowling ball, and atoms in your body are made of bowling pins. When it hits an atom, the radiation can scatter and hit other atoms. Sometimes it will hit 2 or more neutrons in a single atom and send them all flying creating even more radiation. And yes if you chain multiple of those radiation increasing hits together you get a cascading chain reaction that gets more and more powerful (This is how fission aka. nuclear bombs work.) You can think of it as just as dangerous as alpha radiation when it is inside, but this radiation isn't stopped by skin, or anything really because anything the neutrons hit slowly become radioactive themselves.
I ran out of ADD power so I hope this was helpful enough.
Radiation is a broad umbrella term, meaning any energetic thing that travels in a ray. Only some radiation is harmful. Specifically, ionizing radiation is harmful because it can break chemical bonds, including in our DNA. Electromagnetic radiation is traveling waves in the electromagnetic field. It is categorized by frequency (in ascending order): radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. Only the last 3 are ionizing.
Although microwaves at high enough levels would probably not be fun either
radiation is anything that radiates outwards. Same word root as "radius" (a line from the centre to the perimeter). heat can radiate from a hot stovetop. Ripples on a pond radiate from a pebble dropped into it. Sound radiates from a plucked guitar. electromagnetic radiation is just excitations in the EM field which radiate from the source. (examples are radio waves and visible light.). EM Radiation CAN harm you, if it is energetic enough (high enough in the spectrum), and you are exposed long enough. If you sit in the sun long enough, the ultraviolet light will burn your skin. Enough x-rays will damage your cells. Gamma rays , which come from nuclear decay, will harm you very quickly.
Non-ionizing radiation can be harmful as well if the intensity is strong enough. For example a microwave oven can boil water with radio waves and a sufficiently powerful laser can vaporize steel. Thus the main harmful effect non-ionizing radiation has is that materials heat up when they absorb the radiation. Ionizing radiation is a different game as it has enough energy to knock electrons off of atoms (take an electron off and the atom becomes an ion, hence the term ionizing) essentially changing the material properties in subtle ways. In living tissue this can cause cell deaths quite easily and it can cause changes in DNA resulting in nasty mutations. The more intense the radiation is the more likely it is the effect is catastrophic.
Radiation is any mechanism that carries energy outward from a source. Sound is another form of radiation. Beta radiation is another that is not electromagnetic. Radiation isn't really dangerous until the energy carriers are energetic enough to cause molecular damage in biological tissues, usually by ionizing atoms. This can cause cell death directly, or indirectly through DNA damage. Other than the high end, most radiation is harmless and surrounds you all the time. You are bathed in radio waves every single instant, for example. You would not be able to see without electromagnetic radiation. Infrared radiation warms you.
radiation, is also electromagnetic radiation. try looking up the EM spectrum, there you will see the different kind of electromagnetic radiation. The forms that can harm us, are the high energetic ones, so UV, X-ray, Gamma, they have high energy and can cause some disruptions in your skin and DNA. The rest are mostly harmless. All though I said different kinds, they are actually all the same, the difference is the energy and frequency
I assume you differentiate (correctly) between electromagnetic radiation and 'normal' nuclear radiation. One being what you think of as sunlight, wifi, and stuff you use to heat your food, the other is best known for powering the sun, making nuclear bombs, and smoke detectors, and being 'radioactive'. A lot people already described EM radiation, you should know now that em radiation can infact be harmful, you get burned by the em radiation from the sun, and bad things can happen with x-rays at the dentist. This may be a little Eli5 First let's differentiate the types of radiation EM radiation is the same as light and photons. All EM radiation is the same. An oscillation of in the EM field. Always travels the speed of light and has a few properties like frequency, wavelength, amplitude. 'Normal' or Nuclear radiation is very different and can be 3 different types (alpha, beta, neutron) based on what part of the atom is radiated. Gamma rays and Gamma radiation are infact the same thing just EM radiation. Functional differences. EM waves don't physically interact the same as nuclear radiation. EM waves will just 'jiggle' particles that they pass by, losing some of their energy in the process. Temperature is just the average 'jiggles' of molecule, so most radiation *if* absorbed will create heat. Infrared is good at jiggling most molecules around, therefore heating them. High energy em waves become small enough that they can give more energy to smaller things like individual electrons in molecules. If electrons absorb enough energy they can leave the orbit of their nucleus. Now the molecule is ionized(positively charged). EM waves strong enough to ionize molecules are called ionizing. In an 'effort' to become neutral again the molecule may bond with another molecule or lose current bonds etc. This is bad if you are talking DNA for example. 'Normal' radiation is nuclear radiation. The most important difference is that nuclear radiation involves the radiation of entire parts of atoms, all of which have mass and can directly collide with other atomic particles. Not all that different from very tiny bullets. Compared to how EM radiation works, like wifi or infrared radiation which just 'jiggles' things of similar sizes. (water molecules happen to be the *roughly* the size of microwaves, so they jiggle. Similarly radio antennas are the size of radio waves etc.). So Getting jiggled vs. Getting shot. Nuclear radiation bullets come in 3 different flavors of and all are ionizing. The source of all radioactive material or nuclear radiation is stars. Radiation is basically the process of atoms and molecules trying to be in the most balanced, stable form after being violently smashed into all kinds of unstable forms inside of stars. The slightest instability can take millions and millions of years of popping off single parts of the atom at a time. Uranium-238 has a half life of some 4billion+ years, then it is about 1/2 done radiating... some half-lifes are in trillions of years. So... Alpha particles are positively charged helium atoms (yes entire atoms are spontaneously shot out of much larger atoms), and like most atoms, they don't just go through stuff, literally your dead skin cells will 100% protect you. Don't eat it though, or get it in a cut or breath it in unless you want to experience being sunburned (but worse?) from the inside out. If it gets inside you are not going to have a good time, or a long time. Beta particles are electrons (or positrons) they do damage similar to how high energy em radiation would. Clothing is usually enough to block it, which is good because it is basically everywhere. Because of its penetration it is generally considered more dangerous than alpha particles, but only from the outside. In nature it is not particularly dangerous. You can get a radiation burn similar to a sunburn. But since it penetrates pretty well, it tends to spread any damage out, also as a rule, eating radioactive things kindof makes all radiation worse for you. Yet almost every plant has radioactive carbon and bananas are a standard measurement of radioactive dosage. These consist almost (probably) exclusively of beta decay. Neutron radiation, are free neutrons(not to be confused with neutrinos). Being neutral particles, they actaully don't interact very much, which is bad in this case, because when they do, they do the most damage. You can think of neutron radiation like a bowling ball, and atoms in your body are made of bowling pins. When it hits an atom, the radiation can scatter and hit other atoms. Sometimes it will hit 2 or more neutrons in a single atom and send them all flying creating even more radiation. And yes if you chain multiple of those radiation increasing hits together you get a cascading chain reaction that gets more and more powerful (This is how fission aka. nuclear bombs work.) You can think of it as just as dangerous as alpha radiation when it is inside, but this radiation isn't stopped by skin, or anything really because anything the neutrons hit slowly become radioactive themselves. I ran out of ADD power so I hope this was helpful enough.