So, the title. As far as I understood, tritium is radioactive because it has more neutrons that protons and one neutron that’s not being held by a proton is slowly decaying through beta decay. Oxygen 18 has 10 neutrons and 8 protons, but it’s not radioactive at all. Why?
In: Physics
It’s not that the number of neutrons are higher than protons, it’s that those specific number of neutrons can’t easily be held together by those specific number of protons.
Neutrons and protons do not bind one-to-one. Neutrons hold onto all nearby protons. Only if you have such an abundance of neutrons that they can’t get enough neighboring protons do they cause radioactivity.
The ideal neutron to proton ratio increases with larger isotopes but starts around 1:1 and gets closer to 3:2 as you go up.
Seriously, on a Monday?
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