
There are about 1700 isotopes among the elements, only 300 of them are stable and
the rest are radioactive. Among those 1400, 40 of them are found in nature, usually from
elements with atomic numbers of 82 or higher. In this section, we are going to investigate
the decay process of alpha, beta and gamma radiations as well as the half-lives of
radioisotopes.
Before we start to investigate how a radioisotope decay, we need to
know what it is and why does it emit radiation first, so click here to
check this out!
Alpha decay results in emission of helium nucleus, whereas beta decay
results in emission of electrons and gamma emission involves emission
of high energy electromagnetic wave. Click to have more information.
What is a half-life? How can we calculater it? Find out the answers here.
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