Gilded

Yum yum, questions about radioactive decay. "I don't understand under what circumstances an element would emit gamma rays." When a nucleus is excited (for example, when a decay happens), it emits a gamma ray. And I'd imagine the more excited it is, the less is the gamma ray's wavelength. And about the other decays, there are a lot of those. I personally find EC (electron capture) and SF (spontaneous fission) the most interesting. In an EC, the nucleus captures one of the electrons surrounding it, which leads to a decrease of charge. Also, when this happens, an x-ray photon is emitted. In an SF, the nucleus is just too unstable, going through fission without the affection of any outer particles or forces. For example, a fermium-256 nucleus has a 8.10% chance of decaying through alpha, and a 91.90 chance of decaying through spontaneous fission. Yipes. As you might imagine, it's not too healthy to eat this sort of isotopes, as fission happening inside your body isn't too nice (when measuring an equivalence dose of ionizing radiation, heavy multi-atomic particles have a Q factor of 20). And as for the neutrons and protons, there's the beta- (electron emission) and beta+ (positron emission). In a beta- decay, the weak nuclear forces cause a neutron to convert into a proton, an anti-neutrino and an electron. In beta+, same happens with a proton, that converts into a neutron, a neutrino and a positron. The neutrons and protons remain in the nucleus, but electrons and positrons and neutrinos and anti-neutrinos leave the atom. As you might know, the positron doesn't usually travel far, since immediately it encounters an electron... BOOM. Matter-antimatter annihilation, transforming the two particles into gamma photons. I'm hoping that even some of this information was helpful. Edit: Oh, swansont answered the neutron/proton thingie. Yes, I forgot to mention that they don't always stick with the atom's nucleus. Edit2: Dammit, forgot to mention that sometimes a neutron emission is even stated as a nucleus' official decay mode, which is the case with for example H-4 emitting a neutron becoming H-3 (tritium). This is quite rare though. Edit3: Yay for me. Should have really double checked the post BEFORE posting. Yeah, I forgot to mention too that sometimes a double decay happens which is the case with for example beryllium-6 emitting two protons to become helium-4. Edit4: Lol, forgot to mention about isomeric transition, where a nucleus of relatively long metastable state becomes stable, emitting nothing but a gamma ray. Such is the case with technetium-99m becoming technetium-99. Its metastable state lasts about 6 hours, which makes it a good isotope for medical research.

You mean actual rocket rocket motors or "rocket" motors? (Lol, this fever is starting to get me )

Yay for me! After several weeks of less night sleep than I actually need (6-7 hours really isn't enough, not for me at least), I've got myself a fever. I should have seen this coming... So, the question is, how seriously does lack of sleep affect the human immunity system? Any other consequences?

"I`m of the opinion that you can`t be taught how to make them in text, it`s better and safer to be shown how." I agree that pictures/video material helps when making this sort of stuff. http://www.unitednuclear.com/exper.htm Here are some good firework making instructions (very nice instructions for aerial mortars). Be sure to agree to the agreement.

"you can buy ex military ICBM rockets from the Russians for example and with such a light payload orbit would be quite easy! :)" When it comes to buying weapons grade plutonium or used military equipment - consult Russia.

I'm quite sure that the two H won't have their electronegativities added together, since electronegativity is specific to each atom, not a bunch of atoms. In fact. I'd imagine that their electronegativity decreases when their electrons are taken over by oxygen.

Whoopsie! I'm sorry, I just saw Primarygun saying so, thereby saying so myself. Should have thought about it for a second or so, then perhaps I would have realized this flaw. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Damn. :|

Stability indeed. They're bound together by strong nuclear forces. Talking of neutrons, does anyone know how's the tetraneutron research? I haven't heard more than "it's possible that this sort of clusters exist".

"you can get gold and silver bars from ebay i have seen loads of them" Yeah I know. The prices are usually right too. I'd like to get my hands on larger pieces of relatively pure uranium and thorium metal pieces too. Edit: I'm not sure if I literally want to get my hands on them though.

I'd like to get my hands on a 1kg tungsten bar. RGB and Smart Elements sell them, but the price is quite high. I'm hoping to get an ounce bar of both gold and platinum too. And for silver, I think I saw a kg ingot somewhere... can't remember where it was.

Yes, they do indeed have the same amount of lone pairs. However, oxygen's electronegativity is higher than nitrogen's, thereby making the specific lone pair section of the molecule more electronegative.

"I have here 2 slugs of Am241 (.7 micro curies each)." I hope you don't use curies anymore. Heil SI-system! And if you still haven't found out how they work in smoke detectors, here's the deal: Mr. alpha crashes into Mr. oxygen. "F U!" says oxygen and becomes ionized. A current passes through the ionization chamber of the detector. Then, Mr. smokeparticle comes to visit the chamber. The electrical current stops, as the smoke (or whatever) particle doesn't conduit electricity. Detector says "beep beep". And if you're wondering why they don't work (in the aspect of making certain sulphides glow), there is a VERY minimal amount of americium-241 in those slugs (I assume they are slugs taken from smoke detectors, thus being even less than 1% americium-241). If you want glow, try mixing radium bromide and zinc sulphide.

"when you can launch a rocket, i cant see how adding firework style chemicals can be dangerous" The launching tube (if even launched from a tube) can act as a pipe bomb. :< "how do i get a firework to launch off the ground and then when it reachs higher altitudes THEN blow up... and not before!?" Use a delay layer of, let's say, sawdust. Then check the known facts of the launch; for example, if a test rocket (with only the lifting charge) is at 100 feet altitude about two seconds after the ignition of the lifting charge, make a delay layer that contains 2 seconds worth of fuse. Also, construct the rocket/mortar carefully: You don't want the main charge to go off at the same moment the lifting charge goes off (this is more common with mortars than rockets).

"NH3 and H2O, every part of the molecule have different attraction to charged particles." That's what I said: Electronegativity is specific to each element, not molecule, and I'd imagine it's only possible for pure covalent molecule structures to have an overall electronegativity. And yes, Primarygun is indeed from Hong Kong, China. However, I think his English is superb compared to the usual level of English-skills amongst the Chinese.

YT is going to have a lot of fun answering this. I would probably go with a mortar, that's launched from a cardboard tube. Probably black powder as a lifting charge... and 7 parts potassium perchlorate 3 parts aluminum powder + barium carbonate and some magnesium shreds added for the mortar itself.

Yeah, I didn't notice that one. My sincere apologies there 5614. Soo... Most of the marbles have their radiation levels stated. If they don't, you can ask if you can use the local high school's Geiger counter if they have one. If they won't let you... well, tough break. Anyway, a single (or even several) uranium marbles are a very minimal risk, as one marble contains a barely visible amount of uranium (in oxide form mostly). Oh and about the vaseline thing, not all marbles are filled with a vaseline-uranium mixture. You might find a marble that's glass all the way, that had some U-oxide added to it before it was formed to ball form. Checked 3 different providers at eBay for U-marbles: 2/3 CPM mentioned (100-200 in both cases) Edit: You must remember also that there are so many uranium glass objects lying about, that if they were extraordinarily dangerous, the cancer rates weren't the way they are now.

"I heard of an instance where bacteria studied in a lab changed so much it became almost dependant on anti biotics for survival." Rofl, I had a funny mental image of a hobo-looking micro-organism saying "I need my penicillin, man!"

Stop calling me Glided! :> There's Glider and Gilded here, so it's no wonder people are so confused. And as for your question, from what I've understood only molecules of covalent bonding have an overall electronegativity, so answering the question would be rather silly (or unpractical anyway).

"And you second query, well a neutron bomb is Nuclear but not thermonuclear " Howcome? The neutron bomb is a fusion bomb (which is thermonuclear) without the U-238 blanket. So, the energy doesn't build up and the neutrons are released almost immediately, causing enhanced radiation damage (not enhanced fallout, those are called "salted" bombs). Inside a neutron bomb, deuterium-tritium fusion happens creating energy, an extra neutron and helium-4. So it's up to the weapon designer to decide whether he wants a) extreme amounts of radioactivity damage, medium amount of explosive damage or b) extreme explosive damage, moderate radiactivity damage. Then if he chooses to, he can put cobalt around the bomb, making it a salted bomb I mentioned earlier (Co-59 + neutron = Co-60). Basically: Nuclear = fission, no specific temperature THERMOnuclear = fusion, in high temperatures

"You mean a nuclear bomb, atomic bomb is the same as a hydrodgen bomb." The hell it is! An atomic bomb is specifically a fission bomb, not a fusion bomb. An atomic bomb is a nuclear device, as a fusion bomb is a thermonuclear device (I'm not absolutely sure if you can call a thermonuclear device a nuclear device, though).

"you wont get a bomb from pitchblende or even pure uranium unless it's mostly pure 233 or 235" Of course, for atomic bomb purposes, it has to be about 90% or higher in U-235 (or U-233, it's fissionable too). It also has to be a supercritical mass, which for uranium is quite many kilograms (about 50kg?). The reactor fuel uranium has just enough (about 3-5%) U-235 to sustain a controllable chain reaction (producing the heat that then vaporizes the water and blah blah blah ).

"Glided, You mean H2O instead of OH, right? because OH is not a molecule, it's an ion..." Yeah well, the oxygen does that bonding with two hydrogen atoms instead of just one when they react (who wouldn't like a threesome? WHOOPEE! Damn, I need sleep again.)

"jdurg, you have radon?" Gee mister, let's not start the nitpicking. "I've asked him in the past and he said that they get too hot and he doesn't want to deal with the problems that may cause." An oxygen discharge tube wouldn't be too practical, as the O has to touch a metal, which would have to be gold or something because otherwise it would oxidize. And the tube would get extremely hot anyway, as you said, as is the case with hydrogen and nitrogen.

Yeah, that's true too, but as we remember that natural uranium is about 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235, and that the uranium in the marbles is even more depleted than that, a very minimal amount of fission will happen. It's fun to think though that "inside that marble there are atoms splitting, just like in an A-bomb". However, bombarding a piece of ore that contains a lot of uranium (such as pitchblende), that's not even in a sealed container isn't generally a good idea.

"is the range of negativity between hydrogen and oxygen very small? how can you know that?" OH (a polar covalent bond) is a bond of moderate electronegativity difference (1.4 actually). And if you want to know which atom the electrons are closest to, they're closer to the one with higher electronegativity. And about the "how can you know if it's small", perhaps you could think "when you spray oxygen with hydrogen, it doesn't form water. But when you heat the solution a bit, it does". For example, fluorine is a bitch because it has a big electronegativity difference with just about everything that's solid, making it hard to store. And because of the high difference, it doesn't even need to be heated to form bonds with... stuff. http://chemistry.allinfoabout.com/features/electronegativity.html <- electronegativities of some elements + some info about electronegativity