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| Understanding the concepts
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| 1.a.
| List some types of radioactive decay processes. To check your answer, open the Various Types of Radioactive Processes Table on the Web site. How does one balance a nuclear equation, i.e., what is conserved? For practice balancing radioactive decay processes, do Problems 18.22, 18.24, 18.26, and 18.28 in the text.
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| b.
| What are transuranium elements? When plutonium is bombarded with alpha particles, a neutron is produced along with a transuranium element. What transuranium element is produced? Open the Synthesis of Some of the Transuranium Elements Table on the Web site to check your answer and to view some other nuclear transformations.
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| 2.
| Define the half-life of a substance. Open the Half-lives Table on the Web site. If you had 10g of each isotope of radium listed in the table, which substance would have the most radium nuclei remaining after 10 years? Consider 222Ra in the table, which has a half-live of 12 days. What fraction of 222Ra remains from a sample that is 36 days old? What fraction remains from a sample that is 60 days old? |
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| 3.a.
| List some applications of nuclear processes. What are radiotracers? Open the Some Radioactive Nuclides Table on the Web site to see the medical applications of some commonly used radiotracers.
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| b.
| Another application of nuclear processes is the production of energy. Differentiate between fusion and fission reactions. Where do fusion reactions occur? What about fission reactions?
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| 4.
| Open the Effects of Short-Term Exposures and the Typical Radiation Exposures Tables on the Web site. What is meant by short-term exposure? Do natural sources or human activities contribute most to typical yearly exposures? The biological effect of radiation depends on the penetrating ability of the radiation, the ionizing ability of the radiation, and the chemical properties of the radiation source. Do Problems 18.65, 18.66, and 18.67 in the text, which discuss these factors.
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| 5.
| Open Key Words on the CD and test your ability to define important terms presented in Chapter 18. |
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| 6.
| Test your understanding of Chapter 18 by taking the ACE quizzes on the Website.
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