A Brief Introduction to Alpha, Beta and Gamma Radiation

/ chemsurvival
Professor Davis explains the three types of nuclear radiation most commonly encountered in General Chemistry courses. Alpha particles (helium nuclei), beta particles (electrons) and gamma particles (high energy photons) are all discussed. Examples of each are presented.

[@2liter8]

He speaks so clearly and calmly that a person can actually learn. Incredible.

[@goldieokoye4614]

Agreed!

[@superkamiguru6258]

He reminds me to Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park.

[@boxsterman77]

I so agree. One of my pet peeves is troublesome speaking (fry voices, comically exaggerated accents, trailing off, annoying intonations etc). He varies his voice. There is no annoying lilt. It's a pleasure to listen to him.

[@ricardoortiz4870]

“I understood that reference.”

[@acromaticgaming-minecraftm5003]

Finally someone who actually explains something I want to know.

[@razamadaz3417]

Interesting stuff man, the kinda stuff i never took notice of in school or simply couldn't understand. It's different now though, aged 49 i've become obsessed with teaching myself how atoms work mostly because of my interest in everything nuclear: power stations, bombs, MRI scanners, chemistry, astrology, electronics etc..etc. For something we cannot see with the naked eye being so fundamental in our lives just blows my mind, as does human ingenuity. I've been reverse engineering a lot of videos this evening, going back and forth through diiferent subject material and want to thank you for shedding some light on how these atoms behave, in a quick well presented manner. I was wanting to know more about radiation: beta, gamma, alpha and had understood the structure of atoms but not the different characteristcs of decay. I will now watch how MRI scanners work, how paired/un-paired electrons create magnetic forces and how plutonium re-procossing works...Thumbs up.

[@MelinaHristova]

Watches Chernobyl once... Becomes Nuclear Physicist through KZbin

[@leonhardeuler9839]

Melina Hristova Exactly 😆

[@harikishore2514]

Lol..

[@ChemSurvival]

Whatever it takes to get more viewers to my channel! Enjoy the chemistry, my friend!

[@RoomDiaries]

vinamiya vinamiya...📢😂

[@EigenA]

Doing research that lead to me needing to know this material and subject matter surrounding it. Initially was not excited but giving my self a crash course with your videos has been helpful, thank you.

[@randymarshislorde]

Professor Davis, I'm not sure if you ever read this comments, but on the off-chance that you do; I'd like to thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.

[@ChemSurvival]

My pleasure. It makes me immeasurably happy to know that these videos are still reaching and helping people even after nearly a decade! 😁

[@andriykolenov4272]

Great video. Have an exam tomorrow and this helped me understand radiation much better.

[@ChemSurvival]

Great! Glad you found it helpful. Good luck on your exam!!!!! Please don't forget to like, subscribe and share. :-)

[@cuzzeh2178]

Ive been fascinated by nuclear physics for quite some time now. As you can imagine, I have watched many videos on the topic. I thought i knew all there was to know about atomic decay, until I watched this video. Bloody brilliant!

[@fanofideal6458]

Not ONLY helpful its is the most understandable sir..thank you

[@erlendlinde-nielsen2059]

Great video Mr. Davis! Didn't quite understand this when my teacher explained it. Your words were indeed much more understandable. Thanks!

[@ChemSurvival]

I'm so glad it helped!!! Thanks for watching :-)

[@sarmadansari]

Its my first video from this channel and it makes me to subscribe immediately to not to lose such an interesting and amazing knowledge and motivate me to learn more from this channel

[@peterkovacs3511]

This is what i was searching for well explained thank you . :)

[@AdamBorseti]

"But enough about sub-atomic particles...." Either a comedy album or a synth-rock song.

[@niloofarseifihesar8981]

great explanation! my question is that how does the radiation occur at the first place? why atoms should give up their particles or energy? in other words what is initiate the radiation?

[@llucllumador380]

Basically there needs to be a balance of neutrons and protons for an atom to be stable. An example of an stable atom would be Carbon, which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. An example of an unstable atom is Carbon-14 , which has 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Carbon-14 is an unstable form of Carbon, a radioactive isotope, it has an imbalance of protons and neutrons (too many neutrons) and will undergo radioactive decay to change into an stable atom. Carbon-14 decays into nitrogen-14 through beta decay in which it transmutes a neutron into a proton and emits a beta particle. You can watch this other video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gHKmoqKcjb17p80 to complement this one.

[@niloofarseifihesar8981]

@@llucllumador380 Thanks so much, now makes perfect sense to me!

[@justimagine2403]

For convenience, we call electrons and photons and gamma rays... massless. I find that hard to digest since nothing is massless. They then say, "Well, they are so small that we just call them massless". That same argument can be made for individual atoms themselves compared to a penny or an ice cube. It really boggles when they talk about up quarks and down quarks, muons and bosons. I think they should change the atom model we are all shown in school to be more complex with proper labeling. Same with the periodic table that each element should have several isotopes that they can be. Hydrogen has at least 3.

[@mateuszcielas3362]

ok, so gamma ray sto be emitted need alpha particle to be released too? they cant just be formed alone? and he opposite, when we are talking about alpha radiation, does it in that case release gamma rays too?

[@AndRyznar]

What is beyond Gamma Rays? There has to be higher frequencies.

[@karhukivi]

Yes, cosmic radiation which has energies above 3 MeV

[@ricardoortiz4870]

@@karhukivi “I understood that reference.”

[@hackcpu]

Best helpful explaining of nucleus radioactivity ever made on KZbin ♥️

[@ChemSurvival]

Thank you so much! Enjoy the channel!

[@gramsopwamaddiclarkson9639]

So simple and clear for students to understand.

[@Awadhesh73]

This video is very helpful to understand clearly the radiations

[@demiratliadam]

Isn't the neutron itself radioactive? I'm talking about the neutron that is released during the decay and starts the chain reaction.

[@dewpointau]

I don’t get what happens with electrons in electron cloud right after alpha decay? Do they stay in their orbits or also fly away?

[@ChemSurvival]

Alpha emission is a nuclear process, which is why we generally ignore the electron cloud when considering the fundamentals of alpha emission. In reality, though, you are quite right that a uranium atom undergoing loss of an alpha particle would, in theory, become a thorium (-2) ion. In practice, however, the two excess electrons in the daughter's valence shell are often rapidly exchanged with other material in the surrounding media until charge balance is again reached, producing a neutral thorium atom. Remember that while the thorium ion would need to lose two electrons from its cloud to become neutral, the emitted alpha particle will also ultimately accept two electrons to become an atom of helium. The result is a chaotic dance of electron exchange within a sample that goes on until charge balance is achieved. It is no doubt a messy process, which is why it is often ignored or glossed over at the intro level. Here is an interesting post on the topic in physics forums: www.physicsforums.com/threads/alpha-decay-extra-electrons.228686/post-1690436 Source www.physicsforums.com/threads/alpha-decay-extra-electrons.228686/

[@FrozenLabRat]

It can just convert itself from a neutron into a proton? And then you have quantum tunneling. Some kind of glitch in the "laws"... We are NOT simulated, right?

[@asgharbeigi9718]

Great, short, and helpful.

[@justthefacts8872]

Elegant explanation.

[@SpotterVideo]

Quantum Entangled Twisted Tubules: When we draw a sine wave on a blackboard, we are representing spatial curvature. Does a photon transfer spatial curvature from one location to another? Wrap a piece of wire around a pencil and it can produce a 3D coil of wire, much like a spring. When viewed from the side it can look like a two-dimensional sine wave. You could coil the wire with either a right-hand twist, or with a left-hand twist. Could Planck's Constant be proportional to the twist cycles. A photon with a higher frequency has more energy. (More spatial curvature). What if gluons are actually made up of these twisted tubes which become entangled with other tubes to produce quarks. (In the same way twisted electrical extension cords can become entangled.) Therefore, the gluons are actually a part of the quarks. Mesons are made up of two entangled tubes (Quarks/Gluons), while protons and neutrons would be made up of three entangled tubes. (Quarks/Gluons) The "Color Force" would be related to the XYZ coordinates (orientation) of entanglement. "Asymptotic Freedom", and "flux tubes" make sense based on this concept. Neutrinos would be made up of a twisted torus (like a twisted donut) within this model. Gravity is a result of a very small curvature imbalance within atoms. (This is why the force of gravity is so small.) Instead of attempting to explain matter as "particles", this concept attempts to explain matter more in the manner of our current understanding of the space-time curvature of gravity. If an electron has qualities of both a particle and a wave, it cannot be either one. It must be something else. Therefore, a "particle" is actually a structure which stores spatial curvature. Can an electron-positron pair (which are made up of opposite directions of twist) annihilate each other by unwinding into each other producing Gamma Ray photons. Alpha decay occurs when the two protons and two neutrons (which are bound together by entangled tubes), become un-entangled from the rest of the nucleons. Beta decay occurs when the tube of a down quark/gluon in a neutron becomes overtwisted and breaks producing a twisted torus (neutrino) and an up quark, and the ejected electron. Gamma photons are produced when a tube unwinds producing electromagnetic waves.

[@nickpn23]

In Beta radiation, if an electron is released and a neutron becomes a proton, doesn't this make the atom positively charged? I don't understand this as the protons and electrons should be equal.

[@atiger4716]

Wow, what a excellent explanation, thank you Sir

[@sarmadansari]

Amazing knowledge Actually I always think its a difficult topic but with this video I understand it and it looks an easy topic.

[@iamlainah5422]

If alpha radiation is the release of two protons and two neutrons, what happens to the electrons in the thorium atom? The thorium atom is supposed to have two more electrons then.

[@ChemSurvival]

I've always found this question fascinating. The short answer is "it depends". In a vacuum, the daughter can remain as an ion carrying a -2 charge, since there isn't anything to interact with. As you can imagine, though, Th(-2) and Ra(-2) ions forming from uranium and thorium decay are not chemically stable ions AT ALL! They really want to get rid of those electrons! In a more realistic scenario, like a radioactive sample of material with billions of billions of atoms in close contact, those electrons can be stripped away by another passing alpha particle created by decay of a different nuclus, creating a helium atom. This is, in fact, how most of the natural helium on Earth is produced. This kind of exchange is perpetually going on underground as uranium and thorium decay, slowly but steadily producing helium atoms that may become trapped by impermeable rocks above. Yup... the helium atoms in your party balloons were once alpha particles.

[@iamlainah5422]

@@ChemSurvival THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I LOVE YOU MAN!!😭😭

[@ChemSurvival]

@@iamlainah5422 Right back atcha, buddy... thanks for watching!

[@kisho2679]

how does radiation differ from particle, why name it differently?

[@fanofideal6458]

May I call the helium atom as an alpha particle or when uranium emits helium plus very energy the combination is called as alpha particle

[@mohammadabdelrahman786]

I think you can call it alpha since basically it is helium. Rutherford when he discovered alpha particles he didn't realize that alpha is basically helium. That discovery was later in life. Thus we ended up with 2 names for the same thing

[@2liter8]

So an electron and a photon are the same when it comes to a gamma ray being formed?

[@catgodswim]

A year later but I feel like answering anyways - they aren't the same because photons have no charge while electrons do have a negative charge. Photons also have way less mass, near zero, whereas electrons technically do have mass but are just so tiny it's usually negligible. If you meant they undergo a similar process of trying to achieve some specific ratio to satisfy some subatomic equivalent to osmosis I see what you mean there. They do both attempt to shed off something in order to try to achieve equilibrium, so they are very similar in that regard. I wouldn't call it the same, though, since the effects end up pretty different.

[@ariyarathneachala6234]

Thanks for your wonderful explanation

[@ChemSurvival]

thanks for watching!

[@anashabeeb4240]

Thanks for your very good explanation.

[@thebestofallworlds187]

when that neutron turns into a proton, how the the negative beta charge pass through the electron cloud?

[@slavoiu5077]

Maybe it is at high energies?

[@fanofideal6458]

We can say like this dear, neutrino breakdown and emitt only electron and proton is still there . When electron emitted it is named as BETA which is in actual an electron emitted with quiet high energy. Next to improve the structure or to get in to balance nucleus of uranium emits very high energy which is called as Gamma.

[@tamhuyetvoinghe2035]

Hello; As you said the alpha consists of two protons and two neutrons. it also consists of two electrons. So alpha must be neutral. Why alpha is positive? Thanks

[@karhukivi]

Helium atom is neutral, but an alpha particle is a helium nucleus without any electrons and is positive. It is also travelling very fast, about 5% of the speed of light or 15,000 km/s, so that is where it gets it energy from, kinetic energy.

[@melissaedmondson5956]

great video and explanation! thank you!

[@ChemSurvival]

Glad you liked it! The greatest thanks you can give is a like and a subscription to my channel!

[@aqsakhan7264]

Why beta particle has charge minus one why not plus one even it may be electron or positron

[@abdullezama2033]

I wich my physics professor could explain things this easily...

[@birtukansimachewsimachew5079]

just best video for me thanks

[@muhammadaltaf9651]

Dear Professor Devis Your presentation is excellent. I have a clarification question; In case of gemma radiation which has no charge and no mass, then what it's nature? If it is any particle called photon or wave then it should have some effective mass? Kindly clarify. Regards

[@user-hg4iv4jh2l]

If you research more about light, you will understand that light shaped the cosmos.

[@user-hg4iv4jh2l]

It is quite complicated but you will have to start from the top of the knowledge root the more detail.

[@user-hg4iv4jh2l]

Your question links to quite a lot with quantum physics and the universe's simulation. It is way more than a clarification question, but something that also links to relativity (by Albert Einstein)

[@miss_B_]

Fascinating! Thank you !

[@realtolkan1284]

so if alpha radiation happens then all of the radiations you mention most happen eminently or does it take time? or is it possible to avoid the rest of the radiations being sent out when alpha radiation has happened?

[@ChemSurvival]

The other types of radiation don't necessarily have to accompany the alpha process, but they often times do. If you're interested in how a specific isotope decays I recommend checking out Brookhaven National Labs NuDat website.

[@KenWiggerAnotherAncientGamer]

Very good video that clarifies a lot for me. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Kedda486]

Well how does a person get Gama Ray's of light and if it can kill tiny particles like that what would be smaller than a virus ?

[@maxscriptguru]

It would be better if the white text in the video did not have any bevel text effects. Currently the text is illegible.

[@davelordy]

The emission of elementary particles ? An alpha particle is not elementary.

[@caroantonchuk]

Very well explained! Thank you

[@danielsayre3385]

It would help me learn better if you had a sick guitar solo at the beginning of the video

[@Kavee_3]

super and attractive explaining✔✔🤩🤩

[@b00nz0r]

I think Photons should be +1-1, would make people understand it better. And a minute detail.

[@ondreiat6674]

Thank you 🙏

[@Ananya-lt4pc]

This is very helpful

[@mustwatchmaven]

How can there be a electron in the nucleus of atom I meant beta particle where did it come from ?

[@ChemSurvival]

At this level, one can simply think of a neutron as the summation of a proton plus an electron (i.e a neutron can be split into these two types of particles and release some energy in the process). This explanation probably makes particle physicists cringe, but it does a very good job of offering an introductory chemistry-level explanation of beta radiation and electron capture.

[@pernal9956]

this auctully helped, thanks alot.

[@jamesmccourt9782]

Great!

[@harimtalsa290]

Thanks a very helpful one 😊

[@liubomirwm]

Interesting .... bombs!

[@hiraazhar9344]

Beta particles are _vely charged particles and how does they are emitted inside nucleus?

[@shilpiarora1041]

Neuton means no chargei.e contain positive nd negative charge nd if negative charge is emitted then left behind is proton

[@thebeast5215]

You can think of a neutron as a proton plus an electron, so when a neutron decays, it decays into the proton, which stays in the nucleus, and an electron, which is ejected out.

[@damekefearon9117]

Thank u really help

[@AndRyznar]

What is beyond Gamma radiation?

[@karhukivi]

Cosmic radiation, >3MeV. Gamma radiation is 0.3 to 3 MeV by convention.

[@shoemakerx0105]

1 second into the video and the ad comes in

[@shoemakerx0105]

KZbin be like Dio "One second has passed"

[@Layarion]

This is great, but something i don't understand is WHY thorium cares.

[@typicalyoli4211]

u da best

[@jakobvincent2602]

is it the same proces with u-235

[@Red_Schuhart]

This guy's a fucking badass! free lecture!

[@ChemSurvival]

guilty 😎

[@whydoyouneedmyname6007]

9:09

[@BradStokesAU]

With math I calculated electrons are 0.000749 so I was 0.0002 off

[@zihadahmed6245]

I am from Bangladesh.

[@rasmus9078]

I still dont understand beta fully but at least i got a better idea of it

[@ChemSurvival]

beta processes are tricky! Technically, positron emission is also considered a beta decay, so "beta" radiation can be positive or negatively charged! When an indicudual nucleon decays there are some very strange things that go on! As for electron emission from the nucleus, you might find THIS VIDEO from my channel helpful! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hmHNYYyfqbyChrc

[@KOSMICKEN09]

I think of the incredible hulk -- Been watching that show again

[@jamesbeatty-wilson5290]

Pym particles

[@TheNab89]

Anyone else over here after watching Chernobyl?

[@ChemSurvival]

Thanks for the comment!!!! Just added "Chernobyl" to my list of search tags ;-) Hope you enjoyed the video.

[@Tax_Free]

Dose this have anything to do with 5g what kind of radiation is coming out of these 5g towers anyone know?

[@ChemSurvival]

Cell phone transmissions rely on radio frequency energy (80GHz in the case of 5g). Radio frequency radiation is far, far lower in energy than gamma: in fact it is about as far to the other end of the electromagnetic spectrum as you can get. So no, the nuclear radiation shown in this video are essentially irrelevant to cell phone use. To put that into a little more perspective, a radio frequency Photon at 80 GHz carries about one ten billionth as much energy as a typical gamma ray photon does

[@brettmoore3194]

How can a neutron have no mass if its a particle and not a waveform😂🎉🎉🎉

[@ChemSurvival]

neutrons indeed have mass (quite close to that of a proton actually) not sure where you got the idea that they don't. 🤔

[@brettmoore3194]

@@ChemSurvival the thumbnail

[@ChemSurvival]

the thumbnail implies that gamma rays (not neutrons) are essentially massless.... which is a fair approximation. @@brettmoore3194

[@brettmoore3194]

@@ChemSurvival maybe you live in the current paradigm where all scientist are confused because everyone followed lorentz instead of. larmor... Today we have scientists who will create a fusion device that's not working before making a working model.... Some scientists believe in sci-fi instead of observations

[@Idyllic.eshaaa]

We were taught this in physics,😂

[@user-xt7jq8qp9x]

Ok...

[@Idyllic.eshaaa]

@@user-xt7jq8qp9x yeah, OK...

[@user-xt7jq8qp9x]

Lol

[@arthurballs7083]

Where's the Hulk. He ain't like in the first minute. Boring.

[@KOSMICKEN09]

You read my mind 😉😁

[@Himmyjewett]

Can I turn into a big green boi

[@mememanatic]

Sure..just let the gamma rays penetrate into your body and u will be that big massive hulk.....😆 🤣

[@Cum007]

@@mememanatic Don't the gamma rays do the exact opposite

[@thebeast5215]

@@Cum007 yeah they usually pass through humans

[@ia5263]

Too many saliva sounds. Gross

[@GammaStyleGaming]

Dude, learn the names of the elements. at 7:12 you say it's called "protacinum" No, just no. It's called Protactinium. Pro-tac-tini-um. Your credibility just dropped to the floor.

[@YBDYT]

CHEESE!