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Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
About 50% of the Earth's internal heat originates from radioactive decay. [17] Four radioactive isotopes are responsible for the majority of radiogenic heat because of their enrichment relative to other radioactive isotopes: uranium-238 (238 U), uranium-235 (235 U), thorium-232 (232 Th), and potassium-40 (40 K). [18]
The decay scheme of a radioactive substance is a graphical presentation of all the transitions occurring in a decay, and of their relationships. Examples are shown below. It is useful to think of the decay scheme as placed in a coordinate system, where the vertical axis is energy, increasing from bottom to top, and the horizontal axis is the proton number, increasing from left to right.
The decay energy is the energy change of a nucleus having undergone a radioactive decay. Radioactive decay is the process in which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by emitting ionizing particles and radiation. This decay, or loss of energy, results in an atom of one type (called the parent nuclide) transforming to an atom of a different ...
The radioactive decay can produce a stable nuclide or will sometimes produce a new unstable radionuclide which may undergo further decay. Radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms: it is impossible to predict when one particular atom will decay.
The first printed edition of the Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart of 1958 in the form of a wall chart was created by Walter Seelmann-Eggebert and his assistant Gerda Pfennig. Walter Seelmann-Eggebert was director of the Radiochemistry Institute in the 1956 founded "Kernreaktor Bau- und Betriebsgesellschaft mbH" in Karlsruhe, Germany (a predecessor institution of the later "(Kern-)Forschungszentrum ...
In nuclear physics, the Bateman equation is a mathematical model describing abundances and activities in a decay chain as a function of time, based on the decay rates and initial abundances. The model was formulated by Ernest Rutherford in 1905 [1] and the analytical solution was provided by Harry Bateman in 1910. [2]
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.