Explain why some substances are radioactive?

Question

plesae will you tell me in the sipelest way! Thanks xx

Answer 1

Atomic nuclei are complex little buggers and can only survive under limited conditions where the number of neutrons is close to the number of protons. Stable carbon, for example, has six protons and six neutrons (carbon-12) but carbon-14 is the isotope which falls apart slowly enough to useful in dating organic material as old as 50,000 years.

There is something called the weak nuclear force which makes this happen, but you need a lot of study to understand why. Nuclei degrade either by beta decay (neutrons turn into electrons + energy but the element doesn't change) or alpha decay in heavier elements such as uranium, which actually changes one element into lighter ones by emitting alpha particles or helium nuclei, which are several thousand times heavier than beta particles and much more dangerous.

Answer 2

radioactivity is a random phenomenon purely based on chance. noone can really tell when a nucleus will decay but some nuclei have a higher probability of decaying than others. using the probabilities of the chance to decay for certain nuclei over a specific period of time, an exponential decay curve can be drawn to determine how many nuclei decay over a period any given length of time for a fixed mass of substance. however, it is very difficult to pinpoint with any great level of accuracy which atom will decay, just how many.

Answer 3

hznfrst is right apart from one thing - beta decay is caused by the decay of one atomic neutron into a proton and an electron (the beta particle). Thus, the new daughter element has one more proton and one less neutron than its parent.

Consider the beta decay of a tritium atom (1 proton + 2 neutrons):

3H1 ---> 3He2

You end up with an isotope of helium.

Answer 4

Basically, when atoms get too big (too many protons and neutrons in the nucleus) they start to get unstable. The unstable atoms eject particles or photons to get to a more stable size.

There is different kind of radiation, depending on what is ejected. There is alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, plus photon radiation. See the link for more.

Answer 5

The balance of energies that hold them together are no longer in balance.

Five kinds of radiation alpha, beta, gamma as waveforms and alpha particulate (a helium nuclei or two protons and two neutrons bound together) and beta particulate (an electron)

for more follow the link

Answer 6

Most things in Chernobyl are radioactive cause Homer Simpson was the reactor safety guy...!