DUMMY

1. What are isotopes and what happens during radioactive decay?
Ans: Isotopes belong to the natural radioactive series. They are characterised by the same atomic number but different atomic weights. The term isotope is of Greek origin, meaning the same place, as defined and coined by Soddy.
In common terms, isotopes can be understood as members of the same family whose number of protons is the same, the number of neutrons varies. For example, carbon has three isotopes with 6, 7 and 8 neutrons, called carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14 respectively.
The addition of a single neutron can alter the stability and properties of that isotope. Based on it, there are two different types of isotopes, - stable and unstable. Carbon-12, the natural isotope is stable, while adding 2 more neutrons to it makes the resultant carbon-14 a radioactive isotope.
Isotopes are denoted in the superscript before the letter denoting the element’s name. For example, 14C denotes the carbon-14 isotope of carbon.
Radioactive decay:
In the case of radioactive isotopes, the radioactive substances get decayed over time. It is measured in terms of half-life, referring to the time in which half of the substance gets decayed. Energy is lost...