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This element is prevented from having a stable isotope with equal numbers of neutrons and protons (beryllium-8, with 4 of each) by its instability toward alpha decay, which is favored due to the extremely tight binding of helium-4 nuclei. It is prevented from having a stable isotope with 4 protons and 6 neutrons by the very large mismatch in ...
Of the 26 "monoisotopic" elements that have only a single stable isotope, all but one have an odd atomic number—the single exception being beryllium. In addition, no odd-numbered element has more than two stable isotopes, while every even-numbered element with stable isotopes, except for helium, beryllium, and carbon, has at least three.
This is a list of radioactive nuclides (sometimes also called isotopes), ordered by half-life from shortest to longest, in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Current methods make it difficult to measure half-lives between approximately 10 −19 and 10 −10 seconds.
53 stable nuclides have an even number of protons and an odd number of neutrons. They are a minority in comparison to the even-even isotopes, which are about 3 times as numerous. Among the 41 even-Z elements that have a stable nuclide, only two elements (argon and cerium) have no even-odd stable nuclides. One element (tin) has three.
7 elements have 6 stable isotopes apiece; 11 elements have 5 stable isotopes apiece; 9 elements have 4 stable isotopes apiece; 5 elements have 3 stable isotopes apiece; 16 elements have 2 stable isotopes apiece; 26 elements have 1 single stable isotope. These last 26 are thus called monoisotopic elements. [3] The mean number of stable isotopes ...
[3] [nb 1] Heavier isotopes also exist; all are synthetic and have a half-life of less than 1 zeptosecond (10 −21 s). [4] [5] Of these, 5 H is the least stable, while 7 H is the most. Hydrogen is the only element whose isotopes have different names that remain in common use today: 2 H is deuterium [6] and 3 H is tritium. [7]
Certain elements have no stable isotopes and are composed only of radioisotopes: specifically the elements without any stable isotopes are technetium (atomic number 43), promethium (atomic number 61), and all observed elements with atomic number greater than 82. Of the 80 elements with at least one stable isotope, 26 have only one stable isotope.
It is also a mononuclidic element, because its other isotopes have such short half-lives that none are primordial and their abundance is very low (standard atomic weight is 9.012 1831 (5)). Beryllium is unique as being the only monoisotopic element with both an even number of protons and an odd number of neutrons.