It’s one of the most basic concepts in all of chemistry: Radioactive elements decay at a constant rate. If that weren’t the case, carbon-14 dating wouldn’t tell us anything reliable about ...

^{4}\textrm{He}\) When a radioactive atom emits an alpha particle the mass number decreases by four and the atomic number drops by two. Here is the equation for the alpha decay of radon-219 into ...

But what if the rate of radioactive decay -- the watch -- was not constant? One minute, the second hand is moving at one speed, and the next it has sped up or slowed down. And what if what changed ...

The electromagnetic force ensures the stability of atoms and makes chemistry happen ... where it is most obviously at work: in radioactive beta decay. In the most common form of this decay ...