Questions tagged [radiation]
Radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. The particles or waves radiate (i.e., travel outward in all directions) from a source.
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Why doesn't orbital electron fall into the nucleus of Rb85, but falls into the nucleus of Rb83?
Rb83 is unstable and decays to Kr-83. Mode of decay is electron capture. Rb85 is stable.
The nuclei Rb83 and Rb85 have the same charge, but Rb85 is heavier than Rb83. While gravity acts more strongly ...
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Is there any thing other than time that "triggers" a radioactive atom to decay?
Say you have a vial of tritium and monitor their atomic decay with a geiger counter. How does an atom "know" when it's time to decay? It seems odd that all the tritium atoms are identical except with ...
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What temperature can you attain with a solar furnace?
A solar furnace is a device that concentrates the sun's light on a small point to heat it up to high temperature. One can imagine that in the limit of being completely surrounded by mirrors, your ...
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Creation of the Electromagnetic Spectrum [closed]
After seeing this image:
http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/images/EM_Spectrum3-new.jpg
And reading this:
"The long wavelength limit is the size of the universe itself, while it is thought that the ...
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Why some nuclei with "magic" numbers of neutrons have a half-life less than their neighbor isotopes?
It's easy to find the "magic" numbers of neutrons on the diagrams of alpha-decay energy: 82, 126, 152, 162. Such "magic" nuclei should be more stable than their neighbors.
But why some nuclei with "...
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Can extra-solar gamma rays reach the Earth's surface?
Can gamma rays of high enough energy entering our planet's atmosphere reach the surface (50% probability)?
Or, in other words, is there a window for extremely high-energy gamma rays like for the ...
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Why did people expect the number of electrons emitted because of the photoelectric effect to rise with the radiation's intensity?
The number of electrons emitted because of the photoelectric effect
rises with the frequency of the radiation
is not influenced by the intensity of the radiation (As Chad points out, this is wrong, ...
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