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Half-life (symbol t½) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable atoms survive. The term is also used more generally to characterize any type of exponential (or, rarely ...
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
Specific activity. Specific activity (symbol a) is the activity per unit mass of a radionuclide and is a physical property of that radionuclide. [1][2] It is usually given in units of becquerel per kilogram (Bq/kg), but another commonly used unit of specific activity is the curie per gram (Ci/g). In the context of radioactivity, activity or ...
Radioactive isotope table "lists ALL radioactive nuclei with a half-life greater than 1000 years", incorporated in the list above. The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear physics properties F.G. Kondev et al. 2021 Chinese Phys. C 45 030001. The PDF of this article lists the half-lives of all known radioactives nuclides.
Iodine-131. Iodine-131 (131I, I-131) is an important radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley. [3] It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nuclear energy, medical diagnostic and treatment procedures, and natural gas production.
Potassium-40 (40K) is a radioactive isotope of potassium which has a long half-life of 1.25 billion years. It makes up about 0.012% (120 ppm) of the total amount of potassium found in nature. Potassium-40 undergoes three types of radioactive decay. In about 89.28% of events, it decays to calcium-40 (40 Ca) with emission of a beta particle (β ...
Radiometric dating. Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares the abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope within the material to ...
Radioactive isotopes ranging from 11 O to 28 O have also been characterized, all short-lived. The longest-lived radioisotope is 15 O with a half-life of 122.266(43) s, while the shortest-lived isotope is the unbound 11 O with a half-life of 198(12) yoctoseconds, though half-lives have not been measured for the unbound heavy isotopes 27 O and 28 ...