Nuclear Physics

A nuclear fission power plant does this, there are 104 operating in the US. These are all light water moderated ones, PWR or BWR. These are the most used types in the world, but there are also heavy water reactors (Candu) and AGR gas cooled reactors.

Depending on the energy of the alpha, fusion into Californium-246 could happen, or elastic Rutherford scattering could happen. If the alpha was energized enough to compensate for the reactions net mass increase (mCf - mCm - mα = 6.86MeV) and the Coulomb barrier (about 26MeV), so about 33MeV total, it could fuse into Cf246. Otherwise it'll bounce off the Cm242 via elastic scattering.

Gallium-67 decays 100% of the time via electron capture, a process where a proton "captures" an electron forming a neutron and a neutrino, so therefore the decay product will have the same same atomic mass number, but an atomic number lowered by one. So for gallium-67, that yields zinc-67.

Tritium (3H) decays into 3He via beta decay.

The energy of the beta particle ejected from a nucleus undergoing beta decay varies widely. It can range from a few keV to something on the order of 1 MeV. The latter can see the beta particle moving at ultrarelativistic speeds, which means near the speed of light. This is the exception rather than the rule, however. The range of the particles in air is a few meters to a few tens of meters, depending on energy. A sheet of aluminum foil is a good beta particle stopper, and "normal" clothing will block almost all of them.

Were C-14 to actually spit them out, C-12 would result, but that doesn't occur in nature. Were the two neutrons to beta decay, you would get N-14 (actually happens) and then O-14 (doesn't happen).

There are two primary safety features in nuclear power plants. One is some kind of containment structure for the primary system, and the other is some kind of emergency cooling system to cool the nuclear core if things go sideways. The containment structure is designed to keep primary coolant from a major leak in the primary coolant system (and the colant will be radioactive to some degree) from escaping. As bad as that is, the primary mission of containment is to keep nuclear material, which may have broken free of the fuel elements in the core during a meltdown, from getting out into the environment. The clever engineering design and the strength of the reinforced concrete structure are supposed to keep things "under wraps" if it all goes to heck in a handbasket and the primary system is breached. The emergency cooling (XC) systems are designed to cool the fuel elements in the event of a major loss of coolant accident (LOCA). Failure of the primary cooling system could mean a meltdown. We need a way to pump lots of clean, cool water into the reactor vessel to directly cool the fuel if primary coolant is lost. High pressure pumps and a large volume of stored water are needed. Now that we've touched on the containment structure and the emergency cooling system, let's back up a bit. In a reactor, the primary useful product is heat, and we use the primary coolant to carry the heat off to generate steam in a secondary system. When a reactor is shut down after having operated at high power for more than a modest length of time, the fuel in the core still generates an immense amount of heat, and will do so for days after shutdown. The amount of heat is so great that without cooling following a rapid shutdown from extended high power use, the fuel will effortlessly generate enough heat to melt the fuel and the metal inside which it is clad. (That why we need the XC system - to cut this off.) Failure of the fuel cladding will spill the fission products, which are highly radioactive and remain so for many decades or even centuries, into the core. And without cooling, this material will literally "burn through" the reactor vessel itself and end up outside the metal barriers provided by the reactor vessel and all the heavy piping through which the primary coolant flows. If this stuff escapes confinement in the primary system's plumbing, it is hoped that containment inside a "dome" or "blockhouse" of sufficient volume and made of thick, reinforced concrete will hold it. And that's why we have those big, heavy structures in place. The two "biggies" out of the way, we'll need lots of reactor monitoring equipment to keep track of all aspects of the system. There will be temperature and pressure monitoring equipment, and a ton of indicators as to what is open or shut, running or off, high in level or low in level, and more. This equipment will need to be well maintained and will need to work around the clock. We will need radiation monitoring equipment, and we'll need chemical analysis on site to check the status of the coolant and primary plant chemistry on a continuous basis. We will need a well-trained staff who are intimately familiar with all the (well written) operating and contingency procedures for the plant. All the safety features designed into a system and incorporated during construction go for naught if faulty equipment fools operators, or if the operators don't appreciate what their instruments are telling them and act (or react) incorrectly during any evolution of "excursion" they are involved in. Let's all hope everyone does everything right and that everything works correctly. And all of that at all times.

Heroin has a short half-life of about 2 to 6 minutes. This means that half of the drug is eliminated from the body in that time frame. Heroin is rapidly metabolized into morphine and other byproducts in the body.

If by ionising radiation you mean alpha radiation (the most ionising out of alpha, beta and gamma radiation) then about a millimetre of paper would stop it.

alpha radiation ionises the molecules of anything it reaches, but can pass through very few things due to its immense ionising power. This includes human tissue, but in all honesty, a large dose of alpha radiation wouldn't do human tissue alot of good.

In short, almost any material can stop ionising radiation.

Not exactly sure what you mean about "aluminum's half life equation." Exponential decay, from where we get the half-life equation from, has nothing to do with mass, atomic number, etc... and therefore has nothing to do with any particular isotope.

Francium is a radioactive chemical element an can disintegrate.

4n would fit your criteria if it existed, but it doesn't. A helium atom would work to, but they aren't a form of radiation. So, unless I'm forgetting something, I don't believe there's an answer to your question.

Beta and gamma particles can easily enter the body due to their high penetration capabilities. Beta particles are energetic electrons that can penetrate the skin, while gamma rays are high-energy electromagnetic radiation that can pass through the body. Both types of radiation can interact with tissues and organs, potentially causing damage.

Alpha and beta particles cause more damage if they are inside the body because they have a higher linear energy transfer (LET) compared to other types of radiation. This increased LET allows them to deposit more energy in a localized area, leading to greater damage to tissues and cells.

Light behaves as both a wave and a particle in chemistry. As a wave, light exhibits properties such as interference and diffraction, while as a particle, light consists of discrete packets of energy called photons. This dual nature of light is described by the wave-particle duality principle.

A positron is like an electron in every way but charge, electrons having -1, positrons having +1. In other words, they're a positron is an electron's antiparticle. Neutrinos are chargeless, pointlike, nearly massless particles associated with electron and positron decays that exist in order to preserve the conservation of energy, momentum and angular momentum in these decay processes.

Mathematically no, but the strength of the strong nuclear force decreases exponentially with distance, whereas gravitational and electromagnetic force each decrease by the square of distance between two applicable objects. Therefore at large enough distances, the strong nuclear force is much much weaker than the other two and can safely be treated as being non-applicable.

The part of the cell that controls the rest of the cell, or the part of the cell that tells the rest of the cell what to do.

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe alpha rays do not exist. There are alpha particles, and gamma rays, but I do not think alpha rays exist. Alpha particles are most commonly used in smoke detectors, but have been used in the past of kill isolated areas of cancer cells.

Nuclear reactors can be as small as a single room. There are many reactors that are less then 30 MW (a typical reactor is around 1,000 MW), and consider that a normal car engine is about 200 KW (or .2 MW) so some reactors produce the power of only about 100 cars.

The smallest that are standardly used, other then for research, are found on submarines.

Berkelium is a radioactive element with the atomic number 96. No practical uses for berkelium have been found and the small amounts that have been created have been used exclusively for scientific research.

Thorium has potential as a cleaner and more sustainable alternative to uranium in nuclear energy production. It has lower waste production and reduced risk of proliferation. However, it is not a complete solution to climate change and should be considered as part of a broader mix of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures.

The radiation from a properly functioning nuclear power reactor is heavily shielded and cannot be approached close enough to be fatal.

Radiation from damaged or malfunctioning nuclear power plants can be, and has been, fatal. The nuclear reactor incident at Chernobyl is one example. Nuclear reactor failures aboard ships and submarines also prove fatal but are often hidden behind national security; submarine K-19 'the widowmaker' was one such example.

And of course, if one were to get into the reactor room past all of the shielding, any reactor would be fatal.

It is the reverse: Np-235 decay to U-235 by electron capture.