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Radioactive decay, also known as nuclear decay or radioactivity, is the process by which a nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting radiation. A material that spontaneously emits such radiation — which includes alpha particles, beta particles, gamma rays and conversion electrons — is considered radioactive. Radioactive decay is a stochastic (i.e. random) process at the level of single atoms, in that, according to quantum theory, it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Decay and Half Life )〕 The chance that a given atom will decay never changes, that is, it does not matter how long the atom has existed. For a large collection of atoms however, the decay rate for that collection can be calculated from their measured decay constants or half-lives. This is the basis of radiometric dating. The half-lives of radioactive atoms have no known limits for shortness or length of duration, and range over 55 orders of magnitude in time. There are many types of radioactive decay (see table below). A decay, or loss of energy from the nucleus, results when an atom with one type of nucleus, called the ''parent radionuclide'' (or ''parent radioisotope''〔Radionuclide is the more correct term, but radioisotope is also used. The difference between isotope and nuclide is explained at Isotope#Isotope vs. nuclide.〕), transforms into an atom with a nucleus in a different state, or with a nucleus containing a different number of protons and neutrons. The product is called the ''daughter nuclide''. In some decays, the parent and the daughter nuclides are different chemical elements, and thus the decay process results in the creation of an atom of a different element. This is known as a nuclear transmutation. The first decay processes to be discovered were alpha decay, beta decay, and gamma decay. Alpha decay occurs when the nucleus ejects an alpha particle (helium nucleus). This is the most common process of emitting nucleons, but in rarer types of decays, nuclei can eject protons, or in the case of cluster decay specific nuclei of other elements. Beta decay occurs when the nucleus emits an electron or positron and a neutrino, in a process that changes a proton to a neutron or the other way about. The nucleus may capture an orbiting electron, causing a proton to convert into a neutron in a process called electron capture. All of these processes result in a well-defined nuclear transmutation. By contrast, there are radioactive decay processes that do not result in a nuclear transmutation. The energy of an excited nucleus may be emitted as a gamma ray in a process called gamma decay, or be used to eject an orbital electron by its interaction with the excited nucleus, in a process called internal conversion. Highly excited neutron-rich nuclei, formed as the product of other types of decay, occasionally lose energy by way of neutron emission, resulting in a change of an element from one isotope to another. Another type of radioactive decay results in products that are not defined, but appear in a range of "pieces" of the original nucleus. This decay, called spontaneous fission, happens when a large unstable nucleus spontaneously splits into two (and occasionally three) smaller daughter nuclei, and generally leads to the emission of gamma rays, neutrons, or other particles from those products. For a summary table showing the number of stable and radioactive nuclides in each category, see radionuclide. There exist twenty-nine chemical elements on Earth that are radioactive. They are those that contain thirty-four radionuclides that date before the time of formation of the solar system, and are known as primordial nuclides. Well-known examples are uranium and thorium, but also included are naturally occurring long-lived radioisotopes such as potassium-40. Another fifty or so shorter-lived radionuclides, such as radium and radon, found on Earth, are the products of decay chains that began with the primordial nuclides, and ongoing cosmogenic processes, such as the production of carbon-14 from nitrogen-14 by cosmic rays. Radionuclides may also be produced artificially in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, resulting in 650 of these with half-lives of over an hour, and several thousand more with even shorter half-lives. See this list of nuclides for a list of these, sorted by half life. ==History of discovery== Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel, while working with phosphorescent materials. These materials glow in the dark after exposure to light, and he suspected that the glow produced in cathode ray tubes by X-rays might be associated with phosphorescence. He wrapped a photographic plate in black paper and placed various phosphorescent salts on it. All results were negative until he used uranium salts. The uranium salts caused a blackening of the plate in spite of the plate being wrapped in black paper. These radiations were given the name "Becquerel Rays". It soon became clear that the blackening of the plate had nothing to do with phosphorescence, as the blackening was also produced by non-phosphorescent salts of uranium and metallic uranium. It became clear from these experiments that there was a form of invisible radiation that could pass through paper and was causing the plate to react as if exposed to light. At first, it seemed as though the new radiation was similar to the then recently discovered X-rays. Further research by Becquerel, Ernest Rutherford, Paul Villard, Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and others showed that this form of radioactivity was significantly more complicated. Rutherford was the first to realize that all such elements decay in accordance with the same mathematical exponential formula. Rutherford and his student Frederick Soddy were the first to realize that many decay processes resulted in the transmutation of one element to another. Subsequently, the radioactive displacement law of Fajans and Soddy was formulated to describe the products of alpha and beta decay.〔Kasimir Fajans, "Radioactive transformations and the periodic system of the elements". Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, Nr. 46, 1913, p. 422–439〕〔Frederick Soddy, "The Radio Elements and the Periodic Law", Chem. News, Nr. 107, 1913, p.97–99〕 The early researchers also discovered that many other chemical elements, besides uranium, have radioactive isotopes. A systematic search for the total radioactivity in uranium ores also guided Pierre and Marie Curie to isolate two new elements: polonium and radium. Except for the radioactivity of radium, the chemical similarity of radium to barium made these two elements difficult to distinguish. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「radioactive decay」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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