Nuclear Physics

When an isotope does not undergo radioactive decay, it is considered stable. Stable isotopes have a balanced ratio of protons and neutrons in their nuclei, which prevents them from emitting radiation over time.

If Alpha Particles are inhaled, ingested (swallowed), or absorbed into the blood stream, alpha radiation is exposed to sensitive living tissue. The biological damage results in the increased chances of cancer, particularly lung cancer which is caused when alpha emitters are inhaled.

Either scenario is possible. Some electrons are involved in covalent bonds and have an emission spectrum that depicts that extended commitment. Some electrons are more tightly involved with individual atoms and their emissions are of higher energies.

A better word than "live" would probable be the word "exist." And that leads to the question of what "exist" means.

When we say that electrons "exchange virtual photons," we do NOT mean that a particle with any measurable properties traveled from Point A to Point B with the speed of light. In a VAST over-simplification, the virtual photon never displays any measurable properites, and thus (in QM) doesn't really "exist" at any point during its travels.

Which leads to the obvious question, "Okay, so what DO you mean when you say that?" I wish I could give a simple answer. All I can do is refer you to the URL below, which discusses the use of virtual photons in long-distance interactions of particles.

The particle-like features of EM radiation at frequencies of radio waves are almost non-existent. It is far more useful to view such radiation as a vibrating EM-field instead of a photon of almost no energy. When doing so, you can see how a EM wave would result from electrons vibrating back and forth at at set frequency. By setting up an electronic oscillator that has a resonance at a radio wave frequency, you will get electrons vibrating at that frequency; and, from that, an EM wave of that frequency.

> are photons emitted only by electrons jumping from higher to lower energy levels?

No, there are many other ways to accomplish this.

92238U decays to 90234Th by alpha decay. Since an alpha particle is a helium nucleus, 24He2+, having two protons and two neutrons, the reaction entails the loss of two neutrons.

Liquid for sure. As the particles in solid only vibrate and gas particles move about at random. Liquid particles are free to move past each other but, the tend to stick together. Hope that helped.

The same element can have different half-lives, for different isotopes. You can find a list at the Wikipedia article "List of radioactive isotopes by half-life". This list is NOT complete; a complete list would have about 3000 nuclides (that is, isotopes).

A GM (Geiger-Muller) tube for detecting alpha particles must have a very thin window because alpha particles are highly interactive, and they can be stopped with very little, such as only a few inches of air, a sheet of paper, your skin, etc. Typical GM detectors for alpha application use mylar as the window. Even so, the mylar does interfere with the alpha detection, but this is better than nothing.

A curie is defined as 3.7 x 1010 disintegrations per second. As such, a microcurie is 3.7 x 104 disintegrations per second or, as more commonly stated, 2.2 x 106 disintegrations per minute. In summary, 100 microcuries is 2.2 x 108 disintegrations per minute.

The Earth's north pole and south pole each rotate at the rate of [ 1 rotation / 2 pi radians /

360 degrees ] per 24hours 56minutes 4seconds.

Their linear speed, with respect to any other point on Earth, is zero.

The half-life of an element is the time it takes for half of a sample to decay. It is specific to each element. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5730 years, whereas the half-life of element Z would depend on the specific element and is not necessarily comparable to carbon-14.

I believe that the half-life refers to the amount of carbon in it. By knowing the half-life of carbon it can be used to say how old something is. Ofcourse plus or minus a few years. This is where carbon dating comes from. Hope this helps.

EDIT: the half-life refers to the time it takes for an element to decay into its daughter element

The nuclear reactors we have now are fission reactors. This means that they obtain their energy from nuclear reactions that split large nuclei such as uranium into smaller ones such as rubidium and cesium. There is a binding energy that holds a nucleus together. If the binding energy of the original large nucleus is greater than the sum of the binding energies of the smaller pieces, you get the difference in energy as heat that can be used in a power station to generate electricity.

A fusion reaction works the other way. It takes small nuclei like deuterium (heavy hydrogen) and fuses them together to make larger ones such as helium. If the binding energy of the two deuterium nuclei is greater than that of the final larger helium nucleus, it can be used to generate electricity.

There are two main differences between fission and fusion. The first is that the materials required for fission are rarer and more expensive to produce than those for fusion. For example, uranium has to be mined in special areas and then purified by difficult processes. By contrast, even though deuterium makes up only 0.02 percent of naturally occurring hydrogen, we have a vast supply of hydrogen in the water making up the oceans. The second difference is that the products of fission are radioactive and so need to be treated carefully, as they are dangerous to health. The products of fusion are not radioactive (although a realistic reactor will likely have some relatively small amount of radioactive product).

The problem with building fusion reactors is that a steady, controlled fusion reaction is very hard to achieve. It is still a subject of intense research. The main problem is that to achieve fusion we need to keep the nuclei we wish to fuse at extremely high temperatures and close enough for them to have a chance of fusing with one other. It is extremely difficult to find a way of holding everything together, since the nuclei naturally repel each other and the temperatures involved are high enough to melt any solid substance known. As technology improves, holding everything together will become easier, but it seems that we are a long way off from having commercial fusion reactors.

Quarks are elementary particles that make up protons and neutrons. They are fundamental building blocks of matter and cannot be visualized directly as they are smaller than subatomic particles like electrons. Quarks are studied indirectly through the particles they form and their interactions within particle accelerators.

Notebook paper is not able to stop alpha, beta, or gamma radiation due to its thinness and composition. These types of radiation can easily pass through materials like paper.

15 days

When an object is heated, its atoms become energized and move more rapidly. This causes the atoms to emit photons, which are packets of light energy. The higher the temperature of the object, the more photons are emitted, and the light produced may become visible to the human eye.

Alpha particle is nothing but the He nucleus. He nucleus has two protons and two neturons. So 4 nucleons.

As alpha comes out of the parent nucleus, then the by product ie daughter nucleus would have 2 protons less and 4 nucleons less.

So 88Ra226 after emitting one alpha particle gets changed into 86 Rn 222. Rn is Radon.

So 88Ra226 ----------> 86 Rn 222 + 2 He 4

To find the half-life of an object, you measure the time it takes for half of the original quantity of a substance to decay. This decay process is typically exponential, and the half-life is a characteristic property of the material being studied. Scientists can determine the half-life experimentally by observing the decay of a sample over time.

The question does not make sense. The half-life of bromine-74 is, in fact, 25.4 minutes. In 25 minutes, that 4mg sample will decay to 2mg. In 25 more minutes it will decay to 1mg. In 25 more minutes it will be 0.5mg. And so on and so forth.

If you meant to ask how much will remain after a given period of time, please restate the question.

When astatine-218 undergoes alpha decay, it emits a helium nucleus (alpha particle) and transforms into the new element, polonium-214. This process reduces the atomic number of the nucleus by 2 and the mass number by 4.

Bismuth-214 produces Polonium-214 by beta- decay. It also produces Thallium-210 by alpha decay, though at a much smaller percentage.

Number of protons + Number of neutrons = Mass number(number of nucleons)

The main disadvantage about antimatter is that it must be held away from its "ordinary" particle, preferably in a vacuum. This is because when they come into contact they completely eliminate each other. It's like if you add 1 with -1 it makes zero. However, if held properly, it can be excellent for research as we currently know very little about it. For example we don't know why there is so much more ordinary matter than antimatter.