Subsequently, the nucleus is very unstable and radioactive decay occurs and Uranium decays into a more stable element. In a nucleus like Uranium, which has almost 92 protons, coulomb repulsive force becomes too much for the nuclear force to contain. So, in the nucleus, there is a constant tussle between the repelling electromagnetic coulomb force of protons and the attractive strong nuclear force. This nuclear force acts between the protons and neutrons, irrespective of the charge and it’s always strongly attractive. This force is more stronger than the electromagnetic force, but the range of this force is only limited to size of the nucleus, unlike electromagnetic force whose range is infinite. The protons in the nucleus, all being positively charged, repel each other! So if all the protons repel each other, how does the nucleus stay glued together and remain stable? It is because of the ‘Nuclear Force’. In the nucleus, protons and neutrons are cramped together in a really very small space. As you might remember from high school physics, like charges repel each other while unlike charges attract each other. Neutrons are neither positively charged, nor negatively charged, they are neutral particles. Every nucleus contains neutrons as well as protons. To understand radioactivity, we need to explore the structure of an atomic nucleus. The name ‘radioactive’ may suggest to you that radioactive elements radiate radio waves, but unfortunately that is not so! The name ‘radioactivity’ is a misnomer because these elements have nothing to do with radio waves! The reason is that energy and frequency of a gamma ray which is emitted by a radioactive element, is far beyond that of the radio band of electromagnetic spectrum! So, we are just stuck up with the name! What Makes an Element Radioactive? This is called radioactive decay.Ī radioactive element is a fundamental element whose atomic nuclei demonstrates the phenomenon of radioactivity. It’s a spontaneous and random phenomenon whereby nuclei of certain chemical elements like Uranium, radiate gamma rays (high frequency electromagnetic radiation), beta particles (electrons or positrons) and alpha particles (Helium Nuclei).īy the emission of these particles and radiation, the unstable nucleus gets converted into a stabler nucleus. Classical Electromagnetism cannot explain radioactivity. Radioactivity is a very interesting phenomenon in nature. With its discovery in 1896, radioactivity opened up a Pandora’s box of questions and revealed a new world, waiting to be explored in the microcosm of the atomic nucleus. Radioactivity arrived on the scene of world physics in the 19th century, just when people thought they knew everything in physics. Let us understand the phenomenon of radioactivity. This ScienceStruck article has a list of radioactive elements that abound in nature, arranged in the order of increasing atomic number, along with their decay modes.
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