Practice Problem 3

Predict the products of the following nuclear reactions:

(a)  electron emission by ¹⁴C                   (b)   positron emission by ⁸B

(c)  electron capture by ¹²⁵I                    (d)   alpha emission by ²¹⁰Rn

(e)  gamma-ray emission by ^56mNi

Answer

We can predict the product of each reaction by writing an equation in which both mass number and charge are conserved:

(a)

(b) 

(c) 

(d) 

(e)