Friday, September 25, 2015

Radioactive Decay

Many nuclei are radioactive. This means that they spontaneously decompose to form a new nucleus and produce one or more particles. These nuclear reactions are shown by using a nuclear equation. It shows the radioactive decomposition of an element. Here is an example of some nuclear equations:


Source of picture

There are three different types of radioactive decay. The first is alpha decay, which produces alpha particles, that are helium nuclei. The other two types of radioactive decay are beta and gamma decay. Beta decay releases beta particles, which are electrons. Gamma decay releases high energy forms of light called photons. Here is a link to a website that explains all three types of decay, and how to calculate them:

Radioactive Decay

Overall, radioactive decay is a relatively easy concept to understand, and using this blog post to reflect on throughout the rest of the unit will help me retain all of the information on this topic that I learned in class.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 29, 2015 at 12:58 PM

    Thanks Carly for this blog it is very helpful. It includes examples which help to see what actually happens in the reactions and it includes a website which explains radioactivity really well. One thing that would help is having an example of the alpha decay since it changes both the atomic mass and the atomic number.

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  2. Kendall KellermanSeptember 29, 2015 at 4:38 PM

    Carly you highlight a bunch of good points that we have learned so far in this unit. This photo really helped simplify the concept of radioactive decay and was really helpful. I also liked how you organized your post, it made it easy to follow and read. Next time you may want to distinguish which equation goes with which form of decay, but other than that it is awesome.

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  3. AnonymousOctober 1, 2015 at 4:14 PM

    Thank you, Carly, for sharing this picture about Radioactive decay because it really helped me to see examples of decay! Building on Kendall's post, I was very comfortable reading your post because you formatted it in a logical manner and explained all parts of your post really well! I think this post would have been even better if you included the fact that all decays are accompanied by gamma decay, but overall your post was extremely helpful!

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  4. AnonymousOctober 1, 2015 at 5:48 PM

    This post was very helpful for reviewing the types of radioactive decay! It would be useful to include the equations when you name the types of decay as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousOctober 1, 2015 at 5:48 PM

    This post was very helpful for reviewing the types of radioactive decay! It would be useful to include the equations when you name the types of decay as well.

    ReplyDelete

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