swansont
Posted 16 November 2010 - 06:55 AM
You have several different quantities that are conserved, such as charge (Z) and nucleon number (A) which are denoted in the notation, where X is the chemical symbol. If an isotope were to emit a proton (H-1), the charge of the parent would be reduced by 1, and the nucleon number would be reduced by one. The total charge can't change, and you have to have the same number of nucleons — they can't just disappear all by themselves. All of the numbers on each side of the reaction are constant.
The same concept applies to alpha decay
Beta decay is slightly more complicated, because an electron will be accompanied by an antineutrino, which has no charge and A=0. The beta is denoted by
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JUst stepping in here to identify that during alpha decay, a helium nucleus is emmited from the nucleus, not a hydrogen atom like the above formula. during the alpha decay, a helium nucleus, doublely positively charged helium nucleus is emitted along with one or more gamma rays, decreasing the atomic number by 2 and the mass number by 4. eg/U-234----->Th-230+alpha particle+energy(gamma ray).