Questions tagged [radioactivity]
The radioactivity tag has no usage guidance.
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When was critical mass suspected?
The various famous experiments at Los Alamos where the experimenter would dangerously push two masses of plutonium or uranium near each other and observe increased activity -- was such a phenomenon ...
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How were the ions produced in Lawrence's 1932 cyclotron?
From what I understand Lawrence split the atom shortly after Cockcroft and Walton. The ions were 1.25Mev protons originating at the center of the cyclotron. A rather small circular device. I looked at ...
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Was Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity inspired by his father?
Becquerel was awarded the Nobel prize for his discovery of radioactivity. He was researching phosphoresence and decided one day to place the stuff he used in a drawer to keep it out of the sun. He put ...
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What is the history of the use of the word daughter for a decay product in nuclear physics?
I was browsing the book Isotopes: Principles and Applications by Faure and Mensing and I would like to know what is the history of the use of the word daughter for a decay product. It seems to me that ...
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How much radiation did the Curies get while synthetising Radium?
While Marie Skłodowska's husband, Pierre Curie, died in a traffic accident, she died of cancer. Various sources claim that the radiation she got during their experiments might have contributed ...
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