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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • It doesn’t get destroyed, it just splits into smaller things. Decay chains contain a number of reactions, which involve emission of a particular “particle”: alpha particle (helium nucleus), beta- particle (electron), beta+ particle (positron) or gamma particle (photon), accompanied by stuff like neutrinos and antineutrinos. Thus a radioactive sample “loses” mass and energy. You can also have nuclear fission, where a heavy nucleus splits into smaller nuclei.

    This isn’t the full scope of nuclear reactions (there’s stuff like electron capture, proton/neutron emission, etc.), but it should explain the problem at hand.

    Edit: obviously half-life doesn’t mean after that time sample shrinks in half, it means half of the original isotope remains while half has decayed. There would be lead and unstable decay products in the sample still. Radioactive isotopes don’t decay to nothing, they decay to stable isotopes.



  • This is a way for shitty writers to justify infodumping in their story. If your main character doesn’t know shit about the world he just got put into, you can justify every other character dumping a huge load of setting and world building down his ear canal. Instead of, like, trying to mix that info naturally into the story, which also avoids the “as you know, John…” trope (where character A explains something to character B that they already should know), but requires effort and skill on the part of the author.