Nothing can say which nucleus decays next, only the odds: a half-life is a statistic about the whole crowd, not an expiry date stamped on each particle. With every half-life the survivors fall 1, ½, ¼, ⅛ and never quite reach zero. The three decay modes α, β and γ differ sharply in penetration: a sheet of paper stops alpha, beta needs aluminium foil, gamma demands lead. On a larger scale come chain-reaction fission and fusion, two opposite directions along the same binding-energy curve.
Nothing can say which nucleus decays next, only the odds: a half-life is a statistic about the whole crowd, not an expiry date stamped on each particle. With every half-life the survivors fall 1, ½, ¼, ⅛ and never quite reach zero. The three decay modes α, β and γ differ sharply in penetration: a sheet of paper stops alpha, beta needs aluminium foil, gamma demands lead. On a larger scale come chain-reaction fission and fusion, two opposite directions along the same binding-energy curve.
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