I’ve been reading about orphan sources. Scary stuff. You’d think someone would be on top of that shit. anyway,
can radiation come from any element that has become unstable?
if I had graphite or a collection of carbon atoms, can they become unstable?And then, if so, if they do not continue to bond, will they become radioactive?
Why do elements become unstable if they can just continue to bond to fill their outer shell?Do some elements prefer to be unstable over bonding?
When radioactive decay causes an element to lose its protons, does that mean creates a totally different element to its original, ie. the daughter nuclide?
Ex. If graphite or a collection of carbon atoms that became unstable enough to decay, losing a proton, does that mean that it’s expressing boron atoms? Or can they only decay into an element of the same chemical group block?
Is it possible to transform any element into another element with radioactive decay or is it impossible to because one cannot control the change to its atomic number?
How does radiation destroy a cell?
Why does being exposed to radiation cause burns and why are they so difficult to heal, even with skin grafts?
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Radioactivity is when an element is contains too many particles to remain stable. The forces that bind these particles together can’t keep them in, and whatever breaks off the element determines the type of radioactive decay.
Not every element is unstable, there are elements that will never decay by themselves.
Radiation destroys a cell by, amongst other things, corrupting DNA. Cells rely on DNA to carry their functions. It can also destroy the cell walls and stop cells from dividing.
>can radiation come from any element that has become unstable?
Yes. But some elements are rarely encountered in an unstable form and how fast they decay differs greatly (from nanoseconds to millions of years)
>if I had graphite or a collection of carbon atoms, can they become unstable?And then, if so, if they do not continue to bond, will they become radioactive?
They could, but usually that doesn’t happen in large amounts for no reason. Unstable carbon-14 is created from nitrogen in the high atmosphere from being hit by unfiltered radiation of the sun. But that’s kinda only trace amounts.
Chemically it behaves just like carbon, but it decays back to nitrogen, so when that happens it will leave it’s bonds.
>Why do elements become unstable if they can just continue to bond to fill their outer shell?Do some elements prefer to be unstable over bonding?
Instability comes from an imbalanced or too large core. Bonding is unable to fix that because it only balances out the electrons and not the ratio of protons to neutrons.
>When radioactive decay causes an element to lose its protons, does that mean creates a totally different element to its original, ie. the daughter nuclide?
Yes
>Ex. If graphite or a collection of carbon atoms that became unstable enough to decay, losing a proton, does that mean that it’s expressing boron atoms? Or can they only decay into an element of the same chemical group block?
There are 3 types of decay that change the element. Beta+ and Beta- increase or decrease protons by 1, alpha decreases by two. So carbon can only become Beryllium, Boron or Nitrogen. Though alpha decays mostly happen for larger elements, and losing protons through beta decay is a very rare form of instability. So most small elements will gain protons (because they have too many neutrons one of them transforms to a proton)
>Is it possible to transform any element into another element with radioactive decay or is it impossible to because one cannot control the change to its atomic number?
It’s possible but TONs of effort. You have to keep shooting neutrons into elements and hope it catches the right amount. It has been attempted to produce gold, and it works but you’ll only get a hand full of atoms from a huge investment of energy
>How does radiation destroy a cell?
It ionizes an atom wich will then leave it’s molecule. Large molecules are more likely to be damaged by this (easier target basically). Sadly your DNA happens to be a huge molecule.
>Why does being exposed to radiation cause burns and why are they so difficult to heal, even with skin grafts?
The burns are just a bunch of dead cells. The issue is that the cells below are likely also damaged to some degree so just replacing the dead skin isn’t enough.
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