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Re: [Phys-L] Help



These decay series may possibly help?
Uranium Series   https://imgur.com/kIcoRwg
Neptunium Series     https://imgur.com/nTpX3T3
Thorium Series       https://imgur.com/ImrNQhW
Actinium Series         https://imgur.com/siUR9xk

These are from Phys. & Math Tables Yarwood&Castle Revised for SI Noakes Macmillan 1970(Note the age of these lists)









On Wednesday, May 11, 2022, 01:15:32 PM CDT, bernard cleyet <bernard@cleyet.org> wrote:

I collect junk (dust, ag. soil, etc.) from a HEPA air cleaner's pre-filter and then  measure the Beta (and some Alpha from the surface of the sample)  using a mica window G-M tube.  As expected there's a short half life and then a longer one, and an even longer one. (radioactivity is detected months later.)
Knowing the likely decay is from radon (not thoron-- though I have a large quantity of thorium, and intend to collect and study the thoron and its decay chain,) I  would like the equation(s) for multiple daughters and their half lives (decay constants).  Numerically and analytically for a single isotope and its daughter for several cases is easy .    [λ1>λ2;  λ1<λ2, λ1>>λ2,  etc.]
If ignoring the Alpha's (Next time I'll block W/thick paper) and the very short half lived, one obtains only four isotopes of interest.  So please help me.  bc.... thanks in advance 

p.s.  Another next project is to use one of my crystal detectors and MCA.  (much simpler, only two gamma emitters? 


bc  forgot there should be some gammas detected by the G-M tube from two daughters. 

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