Why is technetium radioactive although the other transition elements (except certain lanthanides and actionoids) are not radioactive?
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There is no real EL15 answer to “why is isotope X of element Y radioactive but isotope W of element Z not”, I don’t think. It is pretty complicated, degree-level physics to even describe the processes properly, and that’s a way short of an explanation. If I can ELI15 or something, assuming you know quite a lot of technical terms… “There are lots of complex, competing factors that determine the stability of a given atomic nucleus, to do with what is known as the binding energy between its nucleons (protons and neutrons) – essentially how happy they are in that configuration vs in a different one they can decay to. It’s all quantum mechanical, so weird non-EL15 concepts like spin states become very relevant. There are also many different ways in which nuclear decay can occur, and adding a single proton or neutron to a large nucleus can completely change the balance.”
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