Radioactive decay has always confused me. If it’s a principle rule of the universe that matter cannot be created or destroyed, then where’s the other half of the material go?it has to go somewhere or else it would be ignoring a fundamental law
For the case of U-235, which undergoes alpha decay, when an atom radioactively decays 2 protons and 2 neutron, essentially a Helium atom, are ejected from the nucleus. What remains is Th-231. So if you have 10 lbs of U-235 and wait out it’s half life, what you would have left is 5 lbs of U-235 and 4.915 lbs of Th-231 all mixed up and the remaining 0.085 lbs off somewhere as the He particles.
Most fecal matter is mostly water, undigested food, and a small amount of dead red blood cells and bacteria. Your digestive system mostly gains matter as a net calculation.
Matter is not destroyed, during radioactive decay some of the “matter” is released as energy in form of radiation.
I’d like to also point out that nuclear decay doesn’t “evaporate” matter. It’s reduced to stable state, which might be different isotope of the same element, or element with lower amount of electrons.
Another point that I’d like to point out is that I’m not a physicist, and this is oversimplification, and probably wrong at some points, but that’s my rough understanding. I am absolutely sure though, that you’ll not get half mass of whatever you had before after one half life cycle.
That’s also not quite true. Matter is “destroyed”, or rather, converted into other forms of energy, when undergoing energy-positive fission or fusion.
The bonds that keep atoms together have mass due to the mass energy equivalence (binding energy). When those chains break or get rearranged, the amount of mass can change. A uranium nucleus has more mass than the sum of its individual parts. The energy you get out of fission does come from mass.
So when uranium atoms split into two daughter atoms, you do end up with less mass than you started out with.
Matter in general is not a conserved quantity, and we break this symmetry every second in our particle accelerators which both destroy and create new matter particles all the time. What is closer to a conserved quantity is energy (although even that isn’t quite true on universe scales).
Yeah, that’s more or less what I meant. It’s not destroyed as in disappears, it’s converted into energy, and… goes away, but that’s still something.
I also realize we’d get less mass, some of it was blown away due to radiation after all, but the post implies that 100% disappears after decay.
Original post should probably not be taken too seriously, but this is this time when it was so wrong it made me uncomfortable :)
It’s not like the matter stops existing, it just stops being that specific element.
In the case of uranium, natural decay is mostly alpha radiation, meaning that 2 neutrons and two protons are ejected as a (high energy) helium nucleus, while the parent atom becomes thorium with an atomic weight four lower (e.g. U-238—>Th-234).
Radioactive decay has always confused me. If it’s a principle rule of the universe that matter cannot be created or destroyed, then where’s the other half of the material go?it has to go somewhere or else it would be ignoring a fundamental law
For the case of U-235, which undergoes alpha decay, when an atom radioactively decays 2 protons and 2 neutron, essentially a Helium atom, are ejected from the nucleus. What remains is Th-231. So if you have 10 lbs of U-235 and wait out it’s half life, what you would have left is 5 lbs of U-235 and 4.915 lbs of Th-231 all mixed up and the remaining 0.085 lbs off somewhere as the He particles.
It turns into funny juice (the subatomic particles or photons are flung out to go do stuff I’m not smart enough to explain further)
Fun fact, when you lose weight, it leaves your body as CO2 gas
Not necessarily. You can also saw your feet off and lose weight that way
Or you could you know just poop
Sorry I’m on 3 day poop pause
Gotta keep up that streak! Go for 10!
Most fecal matter is mostly water, undigested food, and a small amount of dead red blood cells and bacteria. Your digestive system mostly gains matter as a net calculation.
That is a fun fact
They go and do funny things. Like radiate and make other stuff deadly juice.
Mmmm I love deadly juice
I imagine it turns into energy
Matter is not destroyed, during radioactive decay some of the “matter” is released as energy in form of radiation.
I’d like to also point out that nuclear decay doesn’t “evaporate” matter. It’s reduced to stable state, which might be different isotope of the same element, or element with lower amount of electrons.
Another point that I’d like to point out is that I’m not a physicist, and this is oversimplification, and probably wrong at some points, but that’s my rough understanding. I am absolutely sure though, that you’ll not get half mass of whatever you had before after one half life cycle.
That’s also not quite true. Matter is “destroyed”, or rather, converted into other forms of energy, when undergoing energy-positive fission or fusion.
The bonds that keep atoms together have mass due to the mass energy equivalence (binding energy). When those chains break or get rearranged, the amount of mass can change. A uranium nucleus has more mass than the sum of its individual parts. The energy you get out of fission does come from mass.
So when uranium atoms split into two daughter atoms, you do end up with less mass than you started out with.
Matter in general is not a conserved quantity, and we break this symmetry every second in our particle accelerators which both destroy and create new matter particles all the time. What is closer to a conserved quantity is energy (although even that isn’t quite true on universe scales).
Yeah, that’s more or less what I meant. It’s not destroyed as in disappears, it’s converted into energy, and… goes away, but that’s still something.
I also realize we’d get less mass, some of it was blown away due to radiation after all, but the post implies that 100% disappears after decay.
Original post should probably not be taken too seriously, but this is this time when it was so wrong it made me uncomfortable :)
Fair fair
What thisbejacob@lemm.ee said.
But I wanted to add that it’s not a fundamental rule of the universe that matter not be created or destroyed, only energy.
Antimatter can annihilate matter and release photons, for example.
It’s not like the matter stops existing, it just stops being that specific element.
In the case of uranium, natural decay is mostly alpha radiation, meaning that 2 neutrons and two protons are ejected as a (high energy) helium nucleus, while the parent atom becomes thorium with an atomic weight four lower (e.g. U-238—>Th-234).