stability

Isotopes are said to be stable if, when left alone, they show no perceptible tendency to change spontaneously. Under the proper conditions, however, say in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator or in the interior of a star, even stable isotopes may be transformed,…

…much-used method of displaying nuclear-stability relationships is an isotope chart, those positions on the same horizontal row corresponding to a given proton number (Z) and those on the same vertical column to a given neutron number (N). Such a map is shown in Figure 2. The irregular bold line…