Unstable Nuclei and Radioactive

Section 4.4 Decay

You now have a good understanding of the basic structure of matter and how Objectives
matter interacts and changes through processes called chemical reactions. • Explain the relationship
With the information you have just learned about the atom’s nuclear nature, between unstable nuclei
you are ready to learn about a very different type of reaction—the nuclear and radioactive decay.
reaction. This section introduces you to some of the changes that can take
• Characterize alpha, beta,
place in a nucleus; you will revisit and further explore this topic in Chapter 25
and gamma radiation in
when you study nuclear chemistry.
terms of mass and charge.

Radioactivity Vocabulary
Recall from Chapter 3 that a chemical reaction involves the change of one or nuclear reaction
more substances into new substances. Although atoms may be rearranged, radioactivity
their identities do not change during the reaction. You may be wondering why radiation
radioactive decay
atoms of one element do not change into atoms of another element during a
alpha radiation
chemical reaction. The reason has to do with the fact that chemical reactions
alpha particle
involve only an atom’s electrons—the nucleus remains unchanged.
nuclear equation
As you learned in the previous section, the number of protons in the
beta radiation
nucleus determines the identity of an atom. Thus, because there are no changes beta particle
in the nuclei during a chemical reaction, the identities of the atoms do not gamma ray
change. There are, however, reactions that do involve an atom of one element
changing into an atom of another element. These reactions, which involve a
change in an atom’s nucleus, are called nuclear reactions.
In the late 1890s, scientists noticed that some substances spontaneously
emitted radiation in a process they called radioactivity. The rays and particles
emitted by the radioactive material were called radiation. Scientists studying
radioactivity soon made an important discovery—radioactive atoms undergo
significant changes that can alter their identities. In other words, by emitting
radiation, atoms of one element can change into atoms of another element. This
discovery was a major breakthrough, as no chemical reaction had ever resulted
in the formation of new kinds of atoms.
Radioactive atoms emit radiation because their nuclei are unstable.
Unstable systems, whether they’re atoms or the pencil standing on its sharp-
ened tip shown in Figure 4-18a, gain stability by losing energy. As you can
see in Figure 4-18b and Figure 4-18c, the pencil gains stability (and loses
energy) by toppling over. When resting flat on the table top, the pencil has

a Figure 4-18
Unstable systems, such as this
pencil momentarily standing on
its tip, gain stability by losing
b
energy. In this case, the pencil
loses gravitational potential
energy as it topples over.
Unstable atoms also gain stabil-
ity by losing energy—they lose
energy by emitting radiation.

4.4 Unstable Nuclei and Radioactive Decay 105