We recently touched on the subject of radioactivity in class, and we learned about all the types of radiation an atom can emit(gama/beta-+/delta), and what their products are.
What I don’t understand is in beta- a neutron turns into 1 proton and 1 electron, but in beta+ a proton turns into a neutron, how is that possible [(n=>p+e) ==(p=>n)(e?????)]? Aren’t mater and energy subject to the laws of conservation or am I missing something? Where is the electron? Thank you in advance
In: Physics
It doesn’t make sense because you’re missing a few end products! Your intuition was spot on. Beta positive produces a positron and electron neutrino. A positron is an anti-electron–the positive charged counterpart to an electron. edit: (beta negative produces an electron anti-neutrino as well fwiw). I’ll let someone with a stronger background in this part of physics do an explanation of the weak nuclear force and what’s going on at a deeper level here.
edits: for clarity and improving the tone–which was more terse than I wanted the first time!
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