00:01
So for this question, we will first need to understand what is a spontaneous decay.
00:10
Say, take for example a, decay is to b plus c.
00:15
For it to be spontaneous, the mass of the final products must be lower than the mass of the initial parent.
00:28
This would mean that energy is being lost because mass is lost and mass is equals to energy via the einstein's equation but if it were the other way round where the mass of the initial parent is lower than the final mass you mean that energy is being imparted into the system and this would mean that it's not a spontaneous process because you would have to impart some energy for it to produce the final products.
01:06
Right so we want to show that this is actually the case for the alpha decay of oxygen.
01:15
All right so let me just change this.
01:18
So for the alpha decay of oxygen 19 alpha the alpha particle is just a helium particle with four nucleons, two protons and so the so the final product that we actually get is a carbon, actually.
01:40
Carbon 6, because the oxygen has 8 protons...