Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Paper on radioactivity
The discovery of radioactivity and the man
Research on uranus
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Paper on radioactivity
Radiation has existed throughout the entire existence of earth. Scientists did not know about radiation until very recently because radioactive materials look the same as non-radioactive materials. It was not until February of 1896, when a French scientist named Antoine Henri Becquerel did an experiment using naturally fluorescent minerals to study x-ray properties, which were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen, that scientists became aware of the existence of radioactivity. Becquerel “exposed potassium uranyl sulfate to sunlight, and the uranium-bearing crystals were later exposed” The Discovery of Radioactivity. People.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/nuclear/discovery.html (accessed 3/15/14) long enough, placed the crystals on photographic plates, which were wrapped in black paper. He believed the uranium would absorb the sun’s energy and emitted it as x-rays. His hypothesis seemed to be correct when the crystals produced an image on the plate. However, the next few days in Paris were overcast, so Becquerel placed the photographic plate and the crystals in a closed drawer. When he came back, the crystals had produced a strong, clear image on the plate, “proving that the uranium emitted radiation without an external source of energy such as the sun.” The Discovery of Radioactivity. http://www.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/03/4.html, (accessed 3/15/14). Becquerel then used a similar apparatus to prove the radiation he discovered was not x-rays. X-rays are neutral, and, therefore, cannot bend in a magnetic field. When different substances were placed in a magnetic field, the particles deflected in different directions, proving that radiation can have a positive, negative, or neutral electrical charge.
Becquerel did not continue pursui...
... middle of paper ...
... the chemical structure of the element into another element. After half of the radioactive element has decayed, there will be half of a different element and half of the original element. The two elements would not be split exactly halfway through the material. Instead, the element atoms are spread throughout the entire material.
Works Cited
Radioactivity. https://www.boundless.com/chemistry/nuclear-density/radioactivity (accessed 3/14/14).
Radioactive Half-life. www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry/radioactive(accessed 3/12/14).
The Discovery of Radioactivity. People.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/nuclear/discovery.html (accessed 3/15/14).
The Discovery of Radioactivity. http://www.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/03/4.html, (accessed 3/15/14).
The Discovery of Radioactivity. People.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/nuclear/discovery.html (accessed 3/15/14
Physicists started to realize that stable nuclei can be converted to unstable nuclei. Through such process, they discovered that heavy nuclei can undergo nuclear fission. While testing, they added a neutron to an isotope of Uranium 235. This resulted Uranium 235 to become unstable and break down into Barium and Krypton, releasing two to three more neutrons. The breakdown of Uranium 235 is called “fission”.
In "Energy Story" uses an explanation of atoms and tells us the parts of an atom and its structure. In the text it
waste to be formed. This waste is very dangerous since it remains radioactive for hundreds of
Radiation has always been in everyday life even before Roentgen discovered x-ray. The mountains give off natural radiation, other forms of radiation are coal burning power plants, x-rays from a TV, and an airplane ride. The average dose from background radiation is about 360 mrem every year. There are two types of radiation, nonionizing and ionizing radiation. Examples of nonionizing radiation are microwaves and radio waves broadcasting. Ionizing radiation refers to gamma and x-rays. Ionizing radiation means that the rays are able to remove an electron from the atom then ions can be formed. The ions can cause damage when reacting with other atoms. Cells are able to be repaired if low dose are received. However, if cells get a high dose, the cells will be damaged or possibly die. If the cell is damaged permanently then it is referred to as a mutated cell.
Radiation is the emission of electromagnetic energy that is given off in the form of high speed particles that cause ionization. During ionization radiation hits and knocks electrons from an atom creating charged ions. Due to the electron being stripped away from the atom this break the chemical bond. Living tissue within the human body is damaged and attempts to repair it but sometimes the damage is beyond repair.
Radon gas was found in the 1870s, when some scientists were mining for ore in Ore Mountains in Schneeberg, Saxony. The area has a high content of radon in the tunnels because the area has been mined since the 1470s. The scientists later discovered that 75% of the miners died from lung cancer but it did not shut down the tunnels until 1950.
To understand what a radioactive isotope is a basic understanding of the atom is necessary. Atoms are comprised of three subatomic particles : protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons bind together to form the nucleus of the atom, while the electrons surround and orbit the nucleus. Protons and electrons have opposite charges and therefore attract one another (electrons are negative and protons are positive, and opposite charges attract), and in most cases the number of electrons and protons are the same for an atom (making the atom neutral in charge). The neutrons are neutral. Their purpose in the nucleus is to bind protons together. Because the protons all have the same charge and would naturally repel one another, the neutrons act as "glue" to hold the protons tightly together in the nucleus.
The Ultimate Nature of Matter. The theory of quantum mechanics has divided the atom into a number of fundamental sub-atomic particles. Although the physicist has shown that the atom is not a solid indivisible object, he has not been able to find a particle which does possess those qualities. Talk of particles, though, is misleading because the word suggests a material object.
Energy is an odd concept, it is something that is neither here nor there yet has a profound impact on everything, both organic and inorganic. However, energy surrounds us in more ways than is commonly believed; it is possible that matter is only a form of energy. In fact, according to Albert Einstein, matter and energy are different forms of the same thing (“Do Antimatter and Matter Destroy Each Other?”). Through analyzing the superposition of bosons (particles without mass) and fermions (particles with mass), transformations between energy and matter, the creation of mass, and the mass of energy, the existence of what humans consider to be matter will be questioned.
Uranium, a radioactive element, was first mined in the western United States in 1871 by Dr. Richard Pierce, who shipped 200 pounds of pitchblende to London from the Central City Mining District. This element is sorta boring but I found something interesting, they used it to make an an atomic bomb in the Cold War. In 1898 Pierre and Marie Curie and G. Bemont isolated the "miracle element" radium from pitchblende. That same year, uranium, vanadium and radium were found to exist in carnotite, a mineral containing colorful red and yellow ores that had been used as body paint by early Navajo and Ute Indians on the Colorado Plateau. The discovery triggered a small prospecting boom in southeastern Utah, and radium mines in Grand and San Juan counties became a major source of ore for the Curies. It was not the Curies but a British team working in Canada which was the first to understand that the presence of polonium and radium in pitchblende was not due to simple geological and mineral reasons, but that these elements were directly linked to uranium by a process of natural radioactive transmutation. The theory of radioactive transformation of elements was brilliantly enlarge in1901 by the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford and the English chemist Frederick Soddy at McGill University in Montreal. At dusk on the evening of November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Rontgen, professor of physics at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, noticed a cathode tube that a sheet of paper come distance away. He put his hand between the tube and the paper, he saw the image of the bones in his hand on the paper.
Later on the theories developed in light of modern technologies and as man got further closer to sun thus became able to measure the changes occurring on the surface of sun. In 1968s scientists got sufficient evidence by catching the neutrinos from sun light that the reason for the heat and light emitting from sun is due to nuclear reactions that continuously take place in it.
Radiation is a frightening concept. It has lead to many an untimely death in the past 70 years, ranging from victims of atomic bombs in Japan to physiologists experimenting without taking proper safety precautions. The most dangerous form of radiation can be devastating to the body, weakening or eliminating the immune system and tearing the very DNA in one’s cells apart. This form is referred to as ionizing radiation, and even the least harmful potencies - such as x-rays and UV light - can increase the risk of cancer and other health problems. It has enough energy to knock electrons out of atoms in a process called ionization.
Scientists and engineers have been able to enhance our lifestyles by understanding and using the Laws, Concepts and Principles of Optics and how they are applied in Optical Instruments. The key concepts are:
The impact of nuclear power on the modern world has improved Various sectors of the economy and society .i.e. Food and Agriculture, Insect control, Food Preservation, Water Resources, Military, Medicine, Research and Industry. “In 1911 George de Hevesy conducted the first application of a radioisotope. At the time de Hevesy was a young Hungarian student working in Manchester with naturally radioactive materials. Not having much money he lived in modest accommodation and took his meals with his landlady. He began to suspect that some of the meals that appeared regularly might be made from leftovers from the preceding days or even weeks, but he could never be sure. To try and confirm his suspicions de Hevesy put a small amount of radioactive material into the remains of a meal. Several days later when the same dish was served again he used a simple radiation detection instrument - a gold leaf electroscope - to check if the food was radioactive. It was, and de Hevesy's suspicions were confirmed.
Scientists from earlier times helped influence the discoveries that lead to the development of atomic energy. In the late 1800’s, Dalton created the Atomic Theory which explains atoms, elements and compounds (Henderson 1). This was important to the study of and understanding of atoms to future scientists. The Atomic Theory was a list of scientific laws regarding atoms and their potential abilities. Roentagen, used Dalton’s findings and discovered x-rays which could pass through solid objects (Henderson 1). Although he did not discover radiation from the x-rays, he did help lay the foundations for electromagnetic waves. Shortly after Roentagen’s findings, J.J. Thompson discovered the electron which was responsible for defining the atom’s characteristics (Henderson 2). The electron helped scientists uncover why an atom responds to reactions the way it does and how it received its “personality”. Dalton’s, Roentagen’s and Thompson’s findings helped guide other scientists to discovering the uses of atomic energy and reactions. Such applications were discovered in the early 1900’s by using Einstein’s equation, which stated that if a chain reaction occurred, cheap, reliable energy could b...