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The term transmutation dates back to alchemy.Alchemists pursued the philosopher's stone, capable of chrysopoeia – the transformation of base metals into gold. [3] While alchemists often understood chrysopoeia as a metaphor for a mystical or religious process, some practitioners adopted a literal interpretation and tried to make gold through physical experimentation.
Nuclear stability is limited to those combinations of protons and neutrons described by the chart of the nuclides, also called the valley of stability.The boundaries of this valley are the neutron drip line on the neutron-rich side, and the proton drip line on the proton-rich side. [2]
A table or chart of nuclides is a two-dimensional graph of isotopes of the elements, in which one axis represents the number of neutrons (symbol N) and the other represents the number of protons (atomic number, symbol Z) in the atomic nucleus. Each point plotted on the graph thus represents a nuclide of a known or hypothetical chemical element.
A sample of thorium. The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, 232 Th, as the fertile material.In the reactor, 232 Th is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233
232 Th is a fertile material able to absorb a neutron and undergo transmutation into the fissile nuclide uranium-233, which is the basis of the thorium fuel cycle. [56] In the form of Thorotrast , a thorium dioxide suspension , it was used as a contrast medium in early X-ray diagnostics.
A table of alchemical symbols from Basil Valentine's The Last Will and Testament, 1670 Alchemical symbols before Lavoisier Alchemical symbols were used to denote chemical elements and compounds, as well as alchemical apparatus and processes, until the 18th century.
The following table lists some binding energies and mass defect values. [21] Notice also that we use 1 Da = 931.494 028 (23) MeV/c 2. To calculate the binding energy we use the formula Z (m p + m e) + N m n − m nuclide where Z denotes the number of protons in the nuclides and N their number of neutrons.
According to the shell model, protons or neutrons tend to form pairs of opposite total angular momentum.Therefore, the magnetic moment of a nucleus with even numbers of each protons and neutrons is zero, while that of a nucleus with an odd number of protons and even number of neutrons (or vice versa) will have to be that of the remaining unpaired nucleon.