The Many Uses of Nuclear Technology
The first power station to produce electricity by using heat from the splitting of uranium atoms began operating in the 1950s. Today most people are aware of the important contribution nuclear energy makes in cleanly providing a significant proportion of the world's electricity.
Not so well known are the many other ways the peaceful atom has slipped quietly into our lives, often unannounced and in many cases unappreciated.
Radioisotopes and radiation have many applications in agriculture, medicine, industry and research. They greatly improve the day to day quality of our lives.
?What is a radioisotope
Isotopes are different forms of an atom of the same chemical element. They have identical chemical properties but different relative atomic masses. While the number of protons is the same, the number of neutrons in the nucleus differs.
Some isotopes are referred to as 'stable' and unchanging, while others are 'unstable' since their nucleus changes over time – from milliseconds to millennia – as they emit charged particles or waves, making them 'radioactive'. It is the radioactive nature of these unstable atoms, usually referred to as 'radioisotopes', which gives them so many applications in modern science and technology. Their radioactivity means that they can be used as a tag to follow the movement of some material incorporating them.
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دانلود مقاله لاتین استفاده از انرژی هسته ای (The application of nuclear energy)
