Summary Table For Numbers of Each Class of Nuclides
This is a summary table from List of nuclides. Note that numbers are not exact, and may change slightly in the future, as nuclides are observed to be radioactive, or new half-lives are determined to some precision. Note that only the 254 have any claim to stability, but that only 90 nuclides from the first 40 elements are theoretically stable to any process but proton decay.
Type of nuclide by stability class. | Number of nuclides in class (exact number may change). | Running total of nuclides in all classes to this point. | Notes on running total. |
---|---|---|---|
Theoretically stable to all but proton decay. | 90 | 90 | Includes first 40 elements. Proton decay yet to be observed. |
Energetically unstable to one or more known decay modes, but no decay yet seen. Considered stable until radioactivity confirmed. | 164 | 254 | Spontaneous fission possible for "stable" nuclides > niobium-93. Other mechanisms possible for heavier nuclides. Total is the classically stable nuclides |
Radioactive primordial nuclides. | 34 | 288 | Total primordials include Bi, U, Th, Pu, plus all stable nuclides. |
Radioactive nonprimordial, but naturally occurring on Earth. | ~ 51 | ~ 339 | Cosmogenic nuclides from cosmic rays; daughters of radioactive primordials such as francium, etc. |
Read more about this topic: Stable Isotope
Famous quotes containing the words summary, table, numbers and/or class:
“Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.”
—Walter Pater (18391894)
“But hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water than belong to city feasts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“And when all bodies meet
In Lethe to be drowned,
Then only numbers sweet
With endless life are crowned.”
—Robert Herrick (15911674)
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
—Frederick Douglass (c. 18171895)