Sentences with phrase «radioactive decay»

The real gamma rays form in nature from radioactive decay of the atomic nucleus.

In 1967, researchers thought they had the perfect solution to the problem: a mechanical heart fueled by radioactive decay.

The changes in radioactive decay rate tracked that pattern, rising and falling on cue over the course of the year.

No known process can explain how they could mess around with radioactive decay rates.

Hence, we have evolved with a requirement for radioactive decay.

This chain reaction produces many intermediate radioactive mass fragments that are capable of producing energy by undergoing radioactive decay themselves.

For this example, let's use radioactive decay as our topic.

The reading level is right for my students, and the article offers an interesting example of how radioactive decay can be used to help date artifacts.

No one denies that radioactive decay happens in the mantle and the core cools.

This comes from residual heat remaining from when the Earth was first formed and heat from radioactive decay of minerals within the Earth.

They then applied a precise dating technique based on natural radioactive decay of uranium, as Urs Schaltegger added: «In the sedimentary cross-sections, we found layers of volcanic ash containing the mineral zircon which incorporates uranium.

He stands on the shoulders of giants to invent (not discover, big diff) what is essentially a doo dad that depends on radioactive decay rates, particle physics etc...

These electrically neutral subatomic particles are made in stars and nuclear reactors as a byproduct of radioactive decay processes.

Neutrinos were predicted in 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli, who said they were emitted during radioactive decay within atomic nuclei.

For example, an electron neutrino — more precisely, an electron antineutrino — emerges when an atomic nucleus such as tritium undergoes a type of radioactive decay called «β decay» and turns into a slightly less massive helium - 3 nucleus while spitting out an electron and an antineutrino.

For small objects, however, the pull of gravity is utterly swamped by the three other fundamental forces: the strong force (which holds atomic nuclei together), the weak force (which governs radioactive decay), and electromagnetism (which binds molecules together).

Geothermal plants send water down holes to bring to the surface the heat from natural radioactive decay deep in the mantle.

Neutrinos are elementary particles created through radioactive decay that pass quickly through matter.

Nearly half a century ago, NASA developed radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) that convert the heat from radioactive decay into electricity.

Any robotic explorers sent to initially scout out Titan would rely on nuclear power, harnessing radioactive decay to generate electricity and stay warm.

These are thermoelectric converters using normal radioactive decay.

Venus» surface being geothermal heat is different only in that the insulativing layer that retains heat of formation and radioactive decay doesn't stop at the top of the rocks like it does on earth.

The other day my PHYSICS teacher said she did not believe the earth to be 4.6 B years old; she said this as she taught us about radioactive decay which is used to date the age of the earth!

Strings can account for all the known physical forces: gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, which cause radioactive decay.

Because the energy source is symmetrically distributed throughout the shell wall, at some point the external surface of the shell will reach a temperature such that the rate of energy radiated outward by this surface will be equal to the rate at which radioactive decay energy is generated internal to the shell wall.

First predicted in 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli, who won a Nobel prize for this work in 1945, they are produced in various nuclear reactions: fusion, which powers the sun; fission, harnessed by humans to make weapons and energy; and during natural radioactive decay inside the Earth.

By subtracting her own figures on the star's current heavy - element content from these theoretical estimates, Frebel determined how much radioactive decay had occurred and, therefore, established its age.

Just because we can say something is halved in a certain time doesn't necessarily mean that the concept of «half life» is valid over a full range of parameters as it would with, say, with radioactive decay.

Sensing they were onto something big, Fischbach and Jenkins scoured the literature and found more reports of radioactive decay enigmatically slowing down and speeding up, results so contrary to expectation that they, too, had largely been tossed into the dust bin of odd results and equipment error.

The reason for this skepticism is that Fischbach's link between solar activity and radioactive decay runs squarely against textbook physics.

Also that day, Fischbach recalls, «when we looked at our data there was a sharp drop in the count rate [the rate of radioactive decay], exactly coincident with the flare.»

Tellingly, there was no sign of iron, an element that forms by radioactive decay only many days after a supernova.

The U.S. safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water is about 28 Becquerels, the number of radioactive decay events per second, per gallon (or 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter).

Part of the EXO - 200 underground detector used to search for a hypothesized radioactive decay that could reveal how neutrinos acquire their incredibly small mass.

Go for a morning jog over hilly terrain and the very landscape is likely to be the result of tectonic plate movements, powered deep under our feet in great part by radioactive decays like that of the humble americium writ large.

The findings, in the July 28 Nature, suggest that the origin of the 30 trillion to 45 trillion watts of heat produced by the earth's interior is about evenly divided between radioactive decay and leftover heat from the planet's molten formation.

What makes the pp reaction hard is that the neutrinos have very low energy that is about the same as the energy of various radioactive decays that happen on Earth, making it easy for an earthbound detector to confuse a decay with a neutrino event.

Other evidence supports this: When Onstott measured the concentration of helium, which forms from the alpha particles uranium sends off, he found that there was enough radioactive decay to produce the hydrogen gas in the water.

The damaged reactors at Fukushima are still hot, nearly three years after the disaster, thanks to the ongoing radioactive decay of the damaged nuclear fuel.

Ultimately, Fukushima may share the fate of Chernobyl, entombed in concrete and sand while radioactive decay — and heat generation — continue.

When the core ignites, carbon and oxygen fuse to form lots of radioactive cobalt - 56, whose radioactive decay into iron - 56 with a half - life of 77 days powers the peak brightness of a supernova.

In the pools, found in all six of Fukushima's reactor halls, radioactive decay gradually heated the water.

radioactive decay A process by which an element is converted into another element through the shedding of subatomic particles (and energy).

«As we followed the glow of the explosion over the next few weeks, it showed some key characteristics ofthe radioactive decay of these heavy elements,» Drout explained.