swansont

My lab can be found in links here (scroll to the bottom) and here

Shouldn't 7 alpha decays be [math]^{206}_{78}\mbox{Pt}[/math] ? I realize this may just be an exercise in writing out the steps' date=' but there's no way that this result is physically real. [math']^{214}_{82}\mbox{Pb}[/math] only beta decays. You have to include that, along with some other (unlikely) branching, to arrive at [math]^{206}_{80}\mbox{Hg}[/math]

You've violated spin and lepton number conservation. [math]\left.^{11}_{4} \mbox{Be}\right. \rightarrow ^{0}_{-1}\beta + \left.^{11}_{5} \mbox{B}\right + ^{0}_{0}\bar{\nu}[/math]

Why not?

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To clarify: it's not that the alphas are "weak," i.e. low energy - it's that they deposit their energy in a very small distance of travel. Internal exposure is really bad. External exposure is no big deal. Any you're right- gammas are a "whole body" dose. But I still don't recommend eating any.

Yes, but that was fairly early on - certainly not within man's time on earth, and thought to be well before that. I think the composition of the moon indicates that it was after the chemical differentiation of the core, mantle and crust, since there's not a lot of iron on the moon.

Points to Ponder If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled? Are people more violently opposed to fur rather than leather because it's much easier to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs? Why do women wear evening gowns to nightclubs? Shouldn't they be wearing night gowns? If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? Why is it that when we bounce a check, the bank charges us more of what they already know we don't have any of? When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts," and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny? Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to begin with. If you mixed vodka with orange juice and milk of magnesia, would you get a Phillip's Screwdriver? Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car is not called a racist? Why is it that no word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple? Why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up a project, I end it? Why is it that we recite at a play and play at a recital? Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites? Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? Why don't tomb, comb, and bomb sound alike? Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things? If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make terrible? "I am." is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I Do." is the longest sentence? If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and drycleaners depressed? Why is it that if someone tells you that there are 1 billion stars in the universe you will believe them, but if they tell you a wall has wet paint you will have to touch it to be sure? If you take an Oriental man and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented? If people from Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland called "Holes?

The electron (or photon) interferes with itself. It's a wave so it goes through both slits. If you do anything that lets you know that it went through a particular slit the interference pattern goes away.

What is the purpose of the Bi? Magnetic shielding? Magnetic fields have zero divergence. What this means is that in any region of space, there will be as many flux lines entering as leaving. The lines always loop around and close in on themselves, so you can't shield one pole they way I think you want. You will concentrate the flux lines in a high-permeability material, but they leave the material, too. Also: Magnetic forces do no work.

If it's from a battery-powered toy you might have to worry about whether there is any DC-AC conversion going on before the motor that's built-in to the box. And you don't have to spin it backwards, per se. It's just whether you are providing a voltage to get motion, or motion to gat a voltage.

This is being discussed in QM.

Not to diminish the accomplishment, which is significant, but note that what happened what a teleportation of the atom's state, and not the atom itself. The atom wasn't moved across the room (or whatever) - the information contained in it, by virtue of being in a particular state - was.

No, as I stated and YT confirmed, even Th-232 radioactive, but since the half-life is long compared to the age of the earth, there is still a significant bit of it about (and anything in its decay chain should be present in some quantity as well. To be radioactive and naturally occurring it either has to have a half life longer than ~ 109 years or be continually produced somehow, either in a decay chain or an induced reaction like the one that prduces C-14) Th was (and perhaps still is) used in gas mantles because it fluoresces nicely. It's also used in high quality lenses because it makes very high index glass when added to the mix. Since the half-life is so long, you aren't going to lose that many atoms to decay.

Why is Thorium an exception? It has no stable isotopes. Th-232 is long-lived, but it still decays.