PokeChem - 12-10-2015 at 10:41
Look article on wikipedia: Isotopes of Astatine (another table showing only alfa radiations, below somewhere)
it seems that the longest half-life is few hours, but then for that same isotope with longest half life it says that it has half-life of more than 100
days if we look only alfa radiation, which is a small percentage of overall radiation. I always thought that Astatine can't exist for longer than a
day!!!
careysub - 12-10-2015 at 12:46
Many nuclides have more than one mode of decay, each with a different decay rate (which can be expressed as a half-life, though the "decay constant"
is a more useful form).
Rare decay modes have very low decay rates (and thus long half-lifes), but the actual decay rate of a nuclide is the sum of all modes, and thus its
actual half-life is shorter than any single mode (that is, shorter even than the shortest separate mode).
aga - 12-10-2015 at 12:57
Done any actual Chemistry recently PHD ?
I've not done much recently, and the past 4 experiments all failed dismally.
You do have to keep on trying though.