chemistry

List of radioactive nuclides by half-life

List of radioactive nuclides by half-life is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand List of radioactive nuclides by half-life rather than just read about it. In short: This is a list of radioactive nuclides (sometimes also called isotopes), ordered by half-life from shortest to longest, in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Current methods make it difficult to measure half-lives between approximately 10−19 and 10−10 seconds. 10−24 seconds (yoctoseconds) Twenty-three yoctoseconds is the time needed to traverse a 7-femtometre distance at the speed of light—around the diameter…

Key takeaways

List of radioactive nuclides by half-life belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect List of radioactive nuclides by half-life to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of List of radioactive nuclides by half-life from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

This is a list of radioactive nuclides (sometimes also called isotopes), ordered by half-life from shortest to longest, in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Current methods make it difficult to measure half-lives between approximately 10−19 and 10−10 seconds.

10−24 seconds (yoctoseconds)

Twenty-three yoctoseconds is the time needed to traverse a 7-femtometre distance at the speed of light—around the diameter of a large atomic nucleus.

10−21 seconds (zeptoseconds)

10−18 seconds (attoseconds)

10−12 seconds (picoseconds)

10−9 seconds (nanoseconds)

10−6 seconds (microseconds)

10−3 seconds (milliseconds)

100 seconds

103 seconds (kiloseconds)

106 seconds (megaseconds)

109 seconds (gigaseconds)

1012 seconds (teraseconds)

1015 seconds (petaseconds)

1018 seconds (exaseconds)

1021 seconds (zettaseconds)

1024 seconds (yottaseconds)

1027 seconds (ronnaseconds)

1030 seconds (quettaseconds)

The half-life of tellurium-128 is over 160 trillion times greater than the age of the universe, which is 4.35×1017 seconds.

See also List of elements by stability of isotopes List of nuclides Orders of magnitude (time) Lists of isotopes, by element

References

External links Radioactive isotope table "lists ALL radioactive nuclei with a half-life greater than 1000 years", incorporated in the list above. The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear physics properties F.G. Kondev et al. 2021 Chinese Phys. C 45 030001. The PDF of this article lists the half-lives of all known radioactives nuclides.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with List of radioactive nuclides by half-life

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what List of radioactive nuclides by half-life claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to List of radioactive nuclides by half-life before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about List of radioactive nuclides by half-life ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of List of radioactive nuclides by half-life

In research: List of radioactive nuclides by half-life appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses List of radioactive nuclides by half-life in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: List of radioactive nuclides by half-life is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Lists of chemical elements, Radioisotopes, Tables of nuclides, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for List of radioactive nuclides by half-life outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study List of radioactive nuclides by half-life in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
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Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
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Frequently asked questions

What is List of radioactive nuclides by half-life in simple terms?

Why does List of radioactive nuclides by half-life matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study List of radioactive nuclides by half-life?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on List of radioactive nuclides by half-life.