Types of Radiation

Hey, guys, In this new video, we're gonna take a look at nuclear reactions. Now we're going to say here that nuclear reactions deal with chemical processes that take place in unstable nuclei atoms. Now, remember your basic picture of the atom we have spinning around the nucleus are electrons within our nucleus. We have our protons and neutrons are protons air positively charged are neutrons are neutral now, nuclear reactions deals with us somehow affecting the number of protons within our given. Adam, Now we're gonna say this normally happens with very large, bulky radioactive types of elements. Now, we're gonna stay here. Unlike normal chemical reactions where the identities of the elements stay the same, we're gonna say nuclear reactions often result in elements changing into completely different elements. So we're all used to stalk geometry and balanced chemical equations. For example, we're used to seeing we have H two gas here, plus n two gas here combined to give us NH three gas over here and balancing it. Here we put there's a two here we put it to here and a three here, but for nuclear reactions were actually affecting the number of protons within our element. Remember, your protons or your atomic number represents the identity of that element. Every element has its own unique atomic number that no other element has. But a nuclear reactions were actually messing around with the number of protons, which results in us creating completely new and different elements. So you could start out with calcium 20 and somehow go through some process in which calcium 20 I'm calcium 40. I mean becomes are gone. So that's the whole basis of nuclear reactions. We go from one element to a completely new element. By affecting the number of protons affecting number of protons has a direct impact on the identity of the element.

Now we're gonna say here, when it comes to nuclear reactions, we can think the British physicist Ernest Rutherford, who really did a lot of experiments with nuclear reactions His contribution to nuclear chemistry was so great that they actually named Element 104 after him. Element 104 is called Ruth or 40. Um So it's kind of Ahm bridge toe all the work that he's done in terms of this field. Now, Rutherford basically broke down nuclear reactions into three major types of categories. We have our Alfa decay and you may hear instead of alpha decay, you may hear Alfa emission. We also have beta decay, which you may also here as beta emission. And then finally, we have gamma emission. You tend to just hear it is gamma mission. You usually don't hear the term gamma decay. Now what is the word decay or mitt me? Well, that means that the radioactive particle will be a product. So remember, if you hear the word decay or emit for a mission, that means that the radioactive particle involved in all these reactions will be a product. Now the opposite of decay or meeting would be the word capture, so capture will be the complete opposite. Capture would mean that the radioactive particle involved and each of these types of nuclear reactions would be a reacted. So in Alfa decay, we emit an alpha particle. In beta decay, we emit a beta particle and gamma emission. We emit a gamma particle. These particles are what caused our elements to go from one type to another type. And what you have to remember is when they say DK or emission. They're saying that this alpha particle beta particle or gamma particle will be a product. But if you hear the term capture or even absorption, that means that the alpha particle, the beta particles gamma particle, will be reacted. And this has a profound difference on what exactly your products will be because you'll be emitting or decaying these particles along with a whole new element with it. So the farther into into this chapter we go, we'll learn that beyond these three, we also have positron emissions as well as electron capture. Those who come after we learn these first three major types. So just remember, in a regular chemical reaction, we start out with Let's say carbon, we end with carbon. But in the nuclear reaction were emitting or capturing radioactive particles. And as a result, that's gonna change the identity of my element. You could start that with calcium and end up with something completely different, like our God.