discribe the 2 types of forces inside the nucleus of an atom. why are some nuclei unstable(i.e. radioactive)?

Question

discribe the 2 types of forces inside the nucleus of an atom. why are some nuclei unstable(i.e. radioactive)?

Answer 1

The best answer for this would be:

1.) The strong nuclear force
2.) The electroweak force - describes both the weak force and electromagnetic force.

Nuclear instability is a rather complicated topic and frankly still is not very well understood. In general, the nuclear forces (attractive) are greater than Coulomb (repulsive in this case) forces at very close distances (at 2 fm (10^-15)or so). As the nucleus gets larger, the Coulomb forces can begin to overcome the attractive nuclear forces and make the nucleus unstable.

For light nuclei, a greater number of neutrons than protons can make it unstable. The opposite tends to be true for heavy nuclei.

Elements with more than 83 protons do not have stable nuclei.

Most stable nuclei have an even mass number (A) (number of protons (Z) plus number of neutrons (N) - A=Z+N).

Also when the number of proton or neutrons = 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, 126 the nuclei tends to have unusually high stability. These are called "magic numbers".

Answer 2

These forces are called electromagnetic and strong.

Some nuclei are unstable because the force of repulsion among protons are a little bit larger than the attracting forces of the strong filed.

Answer 3

A force is a phenomenon which occurs when motion of a mass is hindered. Forces in non relativistic definition always occur in pairs. Therefore we cannot describle why the atoms is structured the way it is in terms of Forces alone.
The theory of relativity does not explain why atoms are unstable.
And to Quantum mechanics its a puzzle. Are all atomic structures in the Universe stable?

Answer 4

1. strong nuclear attractive forces between any pair of nucleons(protons, neutrons)
2 coulomb repulsive forces betweenany pair of protons.