Chemistry · Chapter 21

Five Ways a Nucleus Decays

Pick a nuclide, then fire a decay at it. Watch the particle leave, watch the proton and neutron counts change, and read the balanced equation the move produces.

The nucleus red = protons, blue = neutrons

The chosen nucleus with its emitted particle

Each dot stands for one nucleon.

The equation for that step

Pick a decay to begin.

Where you are now

U-238 radioactive
Protons Z: 92   Neutrons N: 146
Mass number A: 238
Neutron to proton ratio: 1.59
Energy state: ground state

Fire a decay

What just happened

Read this first
Uranium-238, ready to go
Uranium-238 has far more neutrons than protons. Every decay you fire changes the counts in a fixed way, and the equation below keeps score.

Start somewhere else

The real uranium-238 series step 0 of 14

Uranium-238 takes fourteen steps to reach lead-206. Eight are alpha and six are beta. Walk the whole chain one step at a time.

Your step history

Nothing fired yet.