The steps below show three of the steps in the radioactive decay chain for ²³²₉₀Th. The half-life of each isotope is shown below the symbol of the isotope. (a) Identify the type of radioactive decay for each of the steps (i), (ii), and (iii). [Sections 21.2 and 21.4]

Video transcript

Hello everyone today. We have the following problem. Three of the steps on the radio radioactive decay series for plutonium are shown in the following diagram below the symbol of each isotope. Are there have lives? What types of radioactive decay are each step below? So first we'll start with step one now. It's going from our plutonium to our uranium. And the first thing I want to notice is how are these numbers changing? So if we look at our mass number here, Our mass number, we're going from 244 2240 or we're going so we're going to be decreasing by four. And if we look at our atomic number, We're going from 94 to 92. If we have these two numbers, this is going to translate into a helium atom or an alpha particle and alpha particles undergo alpha decay. So our first step is alpha decay. If you look at our second step we are going from our uranium to our Neptune ium and we do the similar process. We see that for our mass number, We went from 2:42 to 40. So we did not change that. And for atomic number We went from 2 93. This is gonna be -1. If you have this combination of numbers, this is going to correlate to a beta product a beta particle and beta particles undergo beta decay last but not least. We have step three, step three, it's going from our Neptune, Ium to our plutonium. So as before we look at our mask number, We are going from 240 2, 2 40, giving us zero there and then for our atomic number, You're going from 94 Giving us -1. This is going to translate to zero over negative one, which as before was a beta particle that would undergo beta decay. And with that we have our three radioactive decay processes overall, I hope this helped ahead until next time.