Patterns: Observing patterns in the stability of isotopes and radioactive decay series. (Example: Practice determining the differing number of neutrons in isotopes of the same element.) Cause and ...

Certain isotopes are unstable and undergo a process of radioactive decay, slowly and steadily transforming, molecule by molecule, into a different isotope. This rate of decay is constant for a ...

In 1902 Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy discovered that radioactive elements, such as uranium and thorium, broke down into other elements in a predictable sequence or series. This amazing ...

Radioactive decay is a spontaneous and random process. A block of radioactive material will contain many trillions of nuclei and not all nuclei are likely to decay at the same time so it is ...

An curved arrow pointing right. At the turn of the 20th century, people didn't know or understand the dangers of radioactive decay. To them, radioactivity was a new, exotic material that some of ...

In this lesson, students will simulate the randomness of decay in radioactive atoms and visualize the half-life of a sample radioactive element. This lesson can be completed in two (2) 45-minute class ...

Some natural elements are unstable. Therefore, their nuclei disintegrate or decay, thus releasing energy in the form of radiation. This physical phenomenon is called radioactivity and the radioactive ...

Noisy electrical circuits have appeared in these pages before as random number generators, but we’d be forgiven for thinking that radioactive decay might involve something a little less run-of ...

The half life of a radioactive isotope is the time taken for it to decay to half of its original amount of radioactivity. The specific activity is the activity per unit mass of a particular ...

It also means that the process of radioactive decay cannot be speeded up or slowed down by any physical changes such as a change of temperature or pressure. A random process means that scientists ...