Radioactivity - wikipedia.org

The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the subsequent crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plants have propelled nuclear reactors and nuclear energy to the top of every media outlet across the world.  In light of this increased interest in nuclear energy, I have decided to write about radioactivity.  Radioactivity is a natural physical phenomenon that is a consequence of the weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force – three of the four fundamental forces of nature.  It commonly refers to the process by which an unstable atom decays or transmutates to one or more atoms with an accompanying release of energy.  In this article, I will try to explain what radioactivity means and what natural phenomena it describes, why some atoms are radioactive, what radiation is and how it relates to radioactivity.
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