Radioactive decay Definition and 216 Threads

I don't understand clearly what I have to do with the presented info (numbers). I've only just started radiochemistry and nobody has explained to me how to draw decay schemes. If you have any suggestions, advice, or recommended literature (or even step-by-step instructions), it would be a God's...

I was looking at the gamma radiation data from IAEA's website: (https://www-nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vcharthtml/VChartHTML.html) and was confused by the absolute intensity listed in the page. I Googled it and it seems to be the probability of emission but why it doesn't add up to 100%? For example...

A philosopher whose work I'm using in a paper uses a radium atom's decay as an example of a "spontaneous power," or an uncaused event. My professor, though, says "quantum fluctuations" cause radioactive decay. What are these fluctuations, and do we know what causes them? It's a college paper, so...

When we want to determine the radioactivity of a nucleus, we usually determine the counts detected using say a Geiger counter. The count rate is then usually used as the disintegration rate i.e. the activity of the nucleus. However, say now we wish to measure the activity of Radon 222 using...

As I understand 40K decays into 40Ca over a period of ##1.248(3)×10^9## yrs. Assuming this is the natural rate of decay, is there any way to shorten the period of decay (increase the rate of decay), for example, under extreme pressure or heat? Thanks:biggrin:

I was wondering if the resulting daughter element is ionized after the parent undergoes beta(or any other kind) of radioactive decay,

If individual atoms are indistinguishable from one another, then how can you tell if atom A will experience radioactive decay before identical atom B? ISTM there would have to be some underlying structure beyond electrons and quarks and unique to each atom / particle to be able to do this...

Summary:: I have been provided with the table in which N and occurence are given. I have been asked to calculate the 1. Total count 2. mean count 3. mean count. Now, assuming our distribution described by Poisson's we need to calculate the tasks. The Poisson's distribution is given by...

A prior closed post inquired as to precisely what determines the time of any given decay. I wasn't able to comment during that thread, but most responses were about probability and other aspects of the problem. I did not see however any mention of quantum fluctuations as possibly participating...

I recognize that radioactive decay is a spontaneous process in which an unstable atomic nucleus breaks into smaller, more stable fragments, but exactly what is it that causes an atom to decay at a particular time rather than at some other time?

This is just a representative diagram to visualize Surely a very tough one for me to solve. The number of nickel atoms are not mentioned. if the number of decays are ##3.78∗10^8## and with each decay depositing 100keV. The total energy deposited is ##100keV∗3.78∗10^8=6.048∗10^6## I have to...

If you have a lump of the same species of radioactive isotopes, why can't the photons emitted from the radioactive decay of one nucleus cause spontaneous emission from other atoms? I presume it doesn't, because if it did, there would be a geometric effect of radioactive decay, which is not...

It is equally puzzling why we are confined to probability amplitudes for RD as in QM measurements. Newtonian determinism is undermined in both, so why were there still Newtonian determinists around when QM hit the scene? We still have deterministic equations for both ofc but they are limited to...

I know that it has a cause! It happens to make the nucleus more stable. But some say it has no cause. I am confused actually.

Radioactive decay modes always release energy; but why can't nuclear fusion of light elements be a mode of radioactive decay? I guess because although such processes are exothermic, we need an inaccessible fairly high amount of energy to overcome the electrostatic repulsion barrier. But now...

As it's written in the following article, nuclear binding energy is always a positive number; thus it takes energy to disassemble a nucleus into its nucleons. ...The binding energy is always a positive number, as we need to spend energy in moving these nucleons, attracted to each other by the...

The question also considered 99m-Tc which has a 6h of half-life. And 99Tc has about 2.2E5 years. My argue was, “the half life of 99Tc is greater than the lifespan of a person. So ionization energy that is released has minimal effect to the person compared to Tc-99m which decays (and releases...

Why is Uranium-236 less stable than Uranium-235 and Uranium-238?

What is the significance of the radioactive decay constant?

Take one radioactive element and put a detector all around it so that you can immediately detect whenever it will undergo radioactive decay. Have a clock connected to the detector to note the "exact" instant at which the atom decays. Let's say that after 3min after the clock started counting the...

Homework Statement You have 0.0625 grams of an unstable element and 0.9375 grams of the stable daughter product. How many half-lives has it undergone？ Homework Equations N=No (1/2)^(t/(t1/2)) In which N represents the final activity for a period of time No is the original activity t...

Could there be a connection between Robert Zimmermann's work (McMaster Univ. Toronto) on Vector Plasma, and Jenkins and Fischbach's (Perdue Univ.) work on variations in the rate of radioactive decay for elements on Earth in relation to solar activity? Only looking for a confirmation that their...

Before you report this, yes I do know there was already another post like this one, but I don't feel like it fully answered the question. Note that I really don't know anything about quantum anything, but I'm trying to do some reading up on "randomness" and the consensus seems to be that this...

If I put a dosimeter 1 meter away from a gamma sample that starts decaying at the moment I switch on the dosimeter then how would I measure the dose level received by the dosimeter, would it gradually decrease over the first half life or would it stay the same throughout the first half life...

Homework Statement Consider nucleus A decaying to B with decay constant D1, B decays to either X or Y (decay constants D2 and D3). at t=0, number of nuclei of A,B,X and Y are J,J,0 and 0. and N1,N2,N3 and N4 are the number of nuclei of A,B,X and Y at any instant. My question is, what is the...

Hi all, I'm just curious about the weak force and how it works. If quarks and electrons both have weak iso-spin and are constantly whizzing about next to their neighbour's (especially so inside a nucleon), what prevents say, the up quarks from emitting a W- boson everytime they are near a down...

Hi there, not sure whether this is in the right section but: I've made two runs of a radioactive decay experiment where I've got a log(N) vs. time plots. From this I've got the decay constants and hence the half-life. I've averaged these two half-lives ( = 160 secs) and now I'm trying to work...

I read from various sources that Non-baryonic matter (primarily WIMPs) is the best candidate to explain a number of cosmological phenomena. Why would the phenomenon of radioactive decay not be attributed to these abundant (over 1/4 of the mass-energy of the universe) particles? I'm not trying to...

1. Create and solve differential equations for the number of different amounts of isotopes, which change through time in the decay chain X -> Y -> Z, where X and Y are radioactive atoms, and Z is a stable atom. 2. Make a mathematical analysis of how the different amounts of isotopes from 1 mg...

Hi everyone. I read from: https://www.nucleonica.com/Applet/NaturalRA/Button5/page5.html that inside the human body, 4400 of K40 atoms disintegrate every second through radioactive decay. Of this decay, 11% (480) results in gamma radiation, and 50% of that 11% (240) escapes the body. My...

Homework Statement Homework EquationsThe Attempt at a Solution Is there anyway to choose the correct option without solving it? ## \lambda = \frac { 0.693 } { t_{\frac 1 2}} ## [/B] ## N = N_0 e^{- 0.693 {\frac { t } { t_{\frac 1 2 }}}} ## ## N = 10.24 e^{- \frac { 0.693 * 38 } {...

Hello, I am a Mechanical Engineering student but I am a TA for an electricity and magnetism course, and I had a student ask a question that's a little bit outside my understanding. The question was related to the equation for a radiating electric field from an accelerating charged particle...

Homework Statement Two species of radioactive atoms are mixed in equal numbers. The disintegration constant of first species is ##\lambda## and that of second species is ##\frac \lambda {3}##. After a long time, the mixture will behave as a species with mean life ________. Homework Equations...

Hi, thanks to a different thread/question on this forum I've come to appreciate time dilation ..somewhat. And from that I wondered if, given the range of locally measured times aboard any and all particles in the universe, given their different trajectories and histories since the big bang...

Homework Statement Analyzing a rock sample, it is found that it contains 1.58 mg of 238U and 0.342 mg of 206Pb, which is the stable final product of the disintegration of 238U. Assume that all 206Pb found comes from the disintegration of 238U originally contained in sample. How old is this...

Alright, a very simple question here. I am reading about nuclear decay of Carbon 14 into Nitrogen 14. I understand how one electron is released and subsequently one neutron turns into a proton, but I am curious about how many electrons are left with the Nitrogen atom. I want to believe five, as...

I viewed the answers to the non repliable post https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-radioactive-decay-reversible-in-time.673735/, but I have doubts. In particular, the last claim by nugatory: "the overall decay of the sample is as irreversible as the transfer of heat from a hotter body to a...

Homework Statement Archeologists removed some charcoal from a Native American campfire, burned it in O2, and bubbled the CO2 formed into Ca(OH)2 solution (limewater). The CaCO3 that precipitated was filtered and dried. If 4.58 g of the CaCO3 had a radioactivity of 3.2 d/min, how long ago was...

what conditions must occur randomly to allow a radioactive nucleus to decay spontaneously?

Homework Statement (a) Cobalt has only one stable isotope, 59Co. What form of radioactive decay would you expect the isotope 60Co to undergo? Give a reason for your answer. (b) The radioactive nuclei 21084Po emit alpha particles of a single energy, the product nuclei being 20682Pb. (b) (i)...

When reading about radioactive decay, I see two types of decay constants: λ and "k". From what I have interpreted, k = ln (.5) / half-life whereas λ = ln (2) / half-life. Have I defined these correctly? If this is so, the difference between the two is slight. When putting these into equations...

Homework Statement . An atom at rest can undergo radioactive decay, ejecting an electron at a maximum speed of 0.5c. If the atom in a particle accelerator is observed to produce an electron traveling at 0.75c, at least how fast must the atom itself have been moving? Homework Equations u0 x...

Radioactive decay is known to be a pure quantum effect, the particle from the nucleus is in a superposition until we measure it (according to collapse interpretations). In the Sch. cat experiment the radioactive particle gets entangled with a macroscopic object (Geiger counter) and so the...

You can model the probability for radioactive decay as a Poisson distribution. This is the probability for radioactive decay within a specific time interval. (I probably got some of it wrong here). P(k,μ)=λ^k⋅exp(-μ)/k! Is there a way to use this formula to derive the other formula for...

Consider an ensemble of identically prepared pencils balanced on its tip. If a pencil is precisely vertical, ##x=0##, and precisely at rest, ##p=0##, then it will never fall. But some pencils in the ensemble would fall, because according to the uncertainty principle, the standard deviation...

Is the rate of radioactive decay fixed or does the environment have any impact eg would the rate of decay be the same in a low or very high gravitational field (in both cases measured from the viewpoint of the radioactive material)?

Basic high-school homework. I mostly just want feedback on my answers and advice :) The experiment was to: Drop pins into a box. Pick out the one's upside down and count them and these are the ones that underwent decay. Get the ones that weren't upside down and throw them into the box again...

I'm working on a lab and the task is to determine the half life of an element studying the beta radiation or the gamma radiation (emitted from the daughter). I have all the data and I'm done with the beta part, that was pretty straight forward. I have no clue how to relate the gamma radiation to...