You can drown in a river that’s on average 20 centimeter deep. Understanding how radiation causes permanent damage isn’t easy.
There are models that suggest it causes permanent damage if enough damage is done within one cell that the cell repair mechanisms can’t easily repair the damage in a short amount of time.
That suggests radiation for a small amount of time on a small area of the body is more problematic then average background radiation that’s the same over a longer time frame and goes towards the whole body.
You can drown in a river that’s on average 20 centimeter deep. Understanding how radiation causes permanent damage isn’t easy.
There are models that suggest it causes permanent damage if enough damage is done within one cell that the cell repair mechanisms can’t easily repair the damage in a short amount of time.
That suggests radiation for a small amount of time on a small area of the body is more problematic then average background radiation that’s the same over a longer time frame and goes towards the whole body.
A different way of saying this is: power (dE/dt) may be important.