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Why do scientists read?
To learn.
What is one radioactive isotope the geologist can use to learn exact age of the rock?
Absolute dating is a radioactive isotope the geologist can use to learn the exact age of the rock.
How do scientists learn about the climate in Antarctica thousands of years ago?
Ice cores are useful for scientists who want to learn about the climate in Antarctica thousands of years ago.
How was the discovery of the protons initiated the development of the periodic table of elements?
The discovery of protons helped scientists understand the atomic structure of elements. By knowing that each element has a specific number of protons in its nucleus, scientists were able to organize the elements based on their atomic number, which led to the development of the periodic table. This organization revealed patterns in the properties of elements and facilitated the prediction of properties of undiscovered elements.
Does a radioactive substance continue to decay after its half life is over?
No, a radioactive substance does not remain radioactive forever. But we should dig a bit deeper and learn some things about what it means when something is radioactive.Radioactive substances, which are sometimes called radionuclides, are atoms with an unstable atomic nuclear structure. Every unstable atomic nucleus will eventually decay spontaneously, and the only question is when. The time it takes for a given atom of a given radioisotope to decay cannot ever be given, but we've found a way to talk about the length of time it takes for a radionuclide to decay, and that's the half-life. The half-life is the time it takes for half of a large number of atoms of the same radionuclide to decay.When an unstable atomic nucleus decays, a "new" atomic nucleus it formed. This new nucleus is what is called a daughter. The daughter may or may not be radioactive. If it is, it too will eventually decay into another daughter. And so on, and so on until a stable atomic nucleus is arrived at. In this light, no radioactive substance remains radioactive forever. But there's a catch.What if the half-life of a radioisotope is, say, a billion years? Or more? There are some particularly long-lived radionuclides, and they have half-lives longer than the (calculated) length of time the universe itself has been around. That's a long time! Though it may be that nothing stays radioactive forever, an observer might be waiting a long, long, long, time for something like, say, 209Bi (Bismuth-209). This stuff has a half-life of 19 (+ or - 2) x 1018 years. That's about 20 quintillion years! Longer than the universe is calculated to have been here - and by roughly a billion times! Don't hold your breath waiting for 209Bi to alpha decay!
