The Powder Toy

Tritium Down Quark Beta Decay by EvonNoryoziki

EvonNoryoziki
EvonNoryoziki
56 / 3
14th Dec 2022
15th Dec 2022
All quarks decay at some point, and one good example of this is tritium (T), or Hydrogen-3 (H³), decaying into Helium-3 (He³).
physics atoms tritium science educational

Comments

  • EpsilonStudios
    EpsilonStudios     16th Dec 2022
    now h-2?
  • jm211
    jm211     15th Dec 2022
    The reason He-3 isnt as common as He-4 is because when two He-3s collide, it produces an alpha particle (He-4 nucleus) and 2 protons. If He-3 instead picks up a neutron, it becomes He-4.
  • jm211
    jm211     15th Dec 2022
    While I confess nuclear engineering doesn't do too much with quarks (at least my classes havent yet), Tritium (H-3) is unstable, while He-3 is actually stable. It has a binding energy per nucleon of 2.6MeV, while He-4 has 7.1MeV.
  • jm211
    jm211     15th Dec 2022
    http://www.gammaexplorer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Fundamentals-of-Nuclear-Science-Engineering.pdf Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Schultis and Faw, highly recommend it. Beta decay is where a neutron becomes a proton and an electron.
  • TheCombustionChamber
    TheCombustionChamber     15th Dec 2022
    All quarks decay at some point, and one good example of this is tritium (T), or Hydrogen-3 (H), decaying into Helium-3 (He). Test
  • ratio1
    ratio1     15th Dec 2022
    @EvonNoryoziki yes
  • EvonNoryoziki
    EvonNoryoziki     15th Dec 2022
    So if you have a kilogram of a material with a half-life of 1 year, after a year there's 500 grams, another year, 250 grams, then after a decade you'd have about 0.9 grams?
  • ratio1
    ratio1     15th Dec 2022
    @EvonNoryoziki it is. Let's say you start with 1 kg of tritium. 12.3 years later you'll have half of that - 500 g. After another 12.3 years you'll have half of that - 250 g. After another 12.3 years you'll have half of that - 125g. And so on
  • EvonNoryoziki
    EvonNoryoziki     15th Dec 2022
    I thought that half-life is the time it takes for half a sample of [material] to decay?
  • expunged
    expunged     15th Dec 2022
    The half-life of a substance is the amount of time it takes for half that substance to decay (or in the case of singe particles, a 50% chance of decay). It is NOT half the time it takes for a complete decay. In 24.6 years 25% of a tritium sample will remain (on average).