Raioactivity: Supplementary Material



http://www.google.com/imgres



science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb.htm

www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/hiroshim/hiro_med.html

epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/radiation.html

 

RADIOACTIVITY: TERMINOLOGY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

1. What is the name of the scientist who discovered x-rays in 1895?


2.What part of the body was pictured using x-rays?


3. Study the picture carefully and make a hypothesis as to what the person was wearing on one of their fingers?


4. Name the scientist who initially thought that the sun’s energy was being absorbed by a uranium sample which then emitted x-rays.


5.Briefly describe the circumstances that lead the scientist in Question # 4 to change his hypothesis about the sun’s energy and the uranium sample.


6.What had been discovered (refer to Question #5)?


7.How was the natural radiation different from x-rays?


8.Who coined the word “radioactivity”?


9.What two elements did the scientist in Question # 8 discover?


10.Identify the scientist who named and described the alpha particle, the beta particle and the proton. He is known as the “Father of Nuclear Physics”.


11.Elements such as uranium, thorium and plutonium undergo a change in the nucleus by emitting radiation which changes the original (parent) element into another element known as __(a)__ element. This radioactive –(b)__ process continues until the element produced is no longer radioactive.


12.The three types of nuclear radiation are __(a)__ particles, __(b)__ particles and __(c)__ rays.


13.What do you call the type of radiation that is described as having a positive charge with an atomic mass of 4; making it a Helium atom without any electrons?


14.What do you call the type of radiation that is described as having a negative charge with an atomic mass of 0; making it an electron?


15. What do you call the type of radiation that is emitted by nearly all radioactive materials and is described as high energy rays having no mass or charge?


16.What is meant by the term “half-life”?


17.What is the term applied to the process of changing one element into another element through nuclear decay?


18.What can stop alpha particles? Beta particles? Gamma rays?


19.What is the process of splitting an atom’s nucleus into two nuclei with smaller masses called?


20.What is the “atomic bullet” that causes the U-235 nucleus to undergo fission?


21.How many neutrons are released when U-235 nucleus splits?


22.Name two daughter products that form as a result of the splitting of the U-235 nucleus?


23What is the term given to the series of on-going fission reactions (billions occurring each second) which result in the release of tremendous amounts of energy?


24Name the scientist who, on December 2, 1942, achieved the first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction?


25.What are the great scientific implications of his discovery?


ATOMIC BOMB: CONSTRUCTION, USE AND ITS EFFECTS

1.What was the name given to the program during World War II to develop the first nuclear weapons in the United States?


2.What are the “fuels” used in the Nagasaki bomb and in the Hiroshima bomb?


3. What are the four ways that inanimate object were damage or destroyed in both Nagasaki and Hiroshima blasts?


4.What were he four causes of human casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?


5. What is “flash burn”?


6. How much damage did gamma rays cause in the structures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?


7.Describe what is like directly beneath the blast zone (ground zero).


8.Describe what happened in the outlying areas of Hiroshima.


9.What was the radius of total destruction for both Hiroshima and Nagasaki?


10. How much harmful radiation existed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the explosion?


11.When were people exposed to radiation?


12. The explosion in Hiroshima was equivalent to how much TNT?