Talk:Stable nuclide

page move was carried outRadiogenic (talk) 02:25, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Abundance

How many stable isotopes are there? what percentage of all mass do they take up in:

• earth
• the sun
• the universe?

cheers, mastodon 23:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge discussion

• Support; the reader would benefit if the content were merged. The resulting article would still be fairly short. Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed I would much prefer the list to be part of this page, where I would expect to find it if I was afetr information about stable isotopes. I doubt that many users would start by searching for List of.... Emeraude 09:20, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support List of stable isotopes should be placed in this article, rather than the other way around. shoy 22:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support The article List of stable isotopes gives an explanation of stable isotopes, too. Agree that List of stable isotopes should be placed into this article. --Db099221 14:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Neutral Not a particularly terrible list to have around. Both the list an article are fairly short, and the article can be expanded upon. I don't see any particular reason to merge. i kan reed 20:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Applications

It seems that the stable isotopes of C,H,O,N, and maybe a few others (S?) have so many useful applications, from determining the source of the carbon in the testosterone in Floyd Landis's bloodstream, to the water use efficiency of plants... that there is room for content on these subjects separate from the list of all known stable isotopes.

Anyone up to the challenge of writing about it all?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.124.76.137 (talk • contribs) 01:15, 3 August 2006.

Topic merged.

203.89.172.185 22:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Group of Stable Isotopes

Removed pointless table. The formatting was off - Be, F, ... appeared under the zero heading (or halfway between it and one). Is this just a bit of counting WP:OR? It will need some justification (double meaning there) if it is to be included. Vsmith 15:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Xenon

Xenon has only 7 stable isotopes.
Xenon-136 is unstable.

please fix the list it ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.59.106.58 (talk) 08:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Not yet. Only lower limit on half-life exists. All 9 naturally occurring isotopes of Xe are not observed to be radioactive. --V1adis1av 14:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You right, sorry. anyway....

Xenon-124 is missing from the list !!!!!

also Tantalum-180-m like Bismuth-209 , it's considered unstable. it's still on the list ??? !!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.191.228 (talk) 00:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

You are right, Xe-124 was missing. However, Ta-180m was NOT ever observed to be radioactive, only lower limits on its half life were set (technically, it can decay by four different ways: alpha, beta-minus, beta-plus and isomeric transition). So it should remain in the list until its radioactivity would be found in an experiment - I hope it will happen one day. --V1adis1av 18:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing Isotopes

Isotopes that I noticed were missing: Chromium-50, Germanium-76, Selenium-82, Krypton-78, Molybdenum-100, Cadmium-116, Tellurium-120, Tellurium-128, Barium-130, Cerium-136, Cerium-142, Neodymium-150, Europium-151, Tungsten-180, Osmium-184, Mercury-196, Bismuth-209

Not sure about the following since in the CRC it mentions isomers: Cadmium-113, Tellurium-125, Lead-204

Istopes that need to be removed: Tellurium-123 and Tantalum-180m

I used the CRC and a comparison to the Mad_Chemist list to look for differences otherwise there is no way I would have gone throught the whole list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.67.42.147 (talk) 16:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Among the naturally occurring (stable and long-lived) nuclides:

• 48-Ca, 76-Ge, 82-Se, 96-Zr, 100-Mo, 116-Cd, 128-Te, 130-Te, 130-Ba, 144-Nd, and 150-Nd are double beta (2b) active;
• 151-Eu and 180-W are alpha active;
• 78-Kr, 123-Te, 142-Ce, 156-Dy, 149-Sm, 192-Os, and 204-Pb are not radioactive (claims on registration of radioactivity were later carefully checked and "closed", as, for example, for 123-Te). For their half lives, only lower limits are known. So them should be considered as stable, for the current experimental sensitivity.
• 180-Ta ground state is short-lived (8.125 h) and its excited state is (meta)stable with only lower limit on the half-live known (>1e15 yr).

Let me give a list of 31 nuclides that are known to be radioactive with half-life >7E8 yr (i.e. primordial radioactive nuclides) as for today (decay modes: alpha (a), beta (b), double beta (2b), spontaneous fusion (SF), cluster emission(CE)):

40-K (b), 48-Ca (2b), 50-V (b), 76-Ge (2b), 82-Se (2b), 87-Rb (b), 96-Zr (2b), 100-Mo (2b), 113-Cd (b), 116-Cd (2b), 115-In (b), 128-Te (2b), 130-Te (2b), 130-Ba (2b), 138-La (b), 144-Nd (a), 150-Nd (2b), 147-Sm (a), 148-Sm (a), 151-Eu (a), 152-Gd (a), 176-Lu (b), 174-Hf (a), 180-W (a), 187-Re (b), 186-Os (a), 190-Pt (a), 209-Bi (a), 232-Th (a, SF), 235-U (a, CE), 238-U (a, 2b, SF).

The sources like CRC and Mad_Chemist can be out of date because many of the above-mentioned nuclides were found to be radioactive only during the last decade (for example, observation of Eu-151 alpha decay was published in 2007). For some nuclides, the lower limits established for half-lives were cited in some sources as positive results (i.e. the claims that a decay was not found and its half-life is longer than ... were understood as the half-life is equal to ...).

You are right about 50-Cr, 78-Kr, 136-Ce, 142-Ce, 196-Hg -- they have to be added to the list of stable nuclides. All of them were predicted to be double beta active (with very long half-lives) but their radioactivity was never observed. --V1adis1av (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

According to Isotopes of lead, 204-Pb is stable, too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.70.15.202 (talk) 20:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

There are 33 primordial radioactive nuclides:

40K, 48Ca, 50V, 76Ge, 82Se, 78Kr, 87Rb, 96Zr, 100Mo, 113Cd, 116Cd, 115In, 128Te, 130Te, 136Xe, 130Ba, 138La, 144Nd, 150Nd, 147Sm, 148Sm, 151Eu, 152Gd, 176Lu, 174Hf, 180W, 187Re, 186Os, 190Pt, 209Bi, 232Th, 235U, 238U

and 46 "stable" nuclides whose half-life only have the lower bound:

40Ca, 46Ca, 50Cr, 54Fe, 58Ni, 64Zn, 70Zn, 94Zr, 92Mo, 98Mo, 96Ru, 110Pd, 106Cd, 108Cd, 114Cd, 124Sn, 120Te, 123Te, 124Xe, 134Xe, 132Ba, 136Ce, 138Ce, 142Ce, 145Nd, 148Nd, 149Sm, 154Sm, 160Gd, 156Dy, 162Er, 170Er, 168Yb, 176Yb, 180mTa, 182W, 183W, 184W, 186W, 184Os, 192Os, 192Pt, 198Pt, 196Hg, 204Pb, 208Pb

(currently, 78Kr and 136Xe are known to be radioactive, but 123Te is not) --- xayahrainie43, 2018. 09. 07. 18:31

Differences from reference

I have compared the current article list [2] to the current content of the article reference "WWW Table of Radioactive Isotopes"..
I am just reporting the differences here without evaluating them, which I haven't done any research for. The article has nine entries not in the reference:

Chromium-50, Zinc-70, Tellurium-123, Xenon-124, Xenon-136, Cerium-142, Tantalum-180m, Tungsten-183, and Tungsten-184.

The reference has eight stable entries not in the article:

⁷⁶Ge, ¹¹⁶Cd, ¹²⁰Te, ¹²⁵Te, ¹³⁰Ba, ¹⁵¹Eu, ¹⁸⁰W, ²⁰⁹Bi.

PrimeHunter (talk) 00:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Try to search in this mode: [3]. You can see that there are stable isotopes as well as isotopes with half-life shown like greater than 1.8E+17 y etc. It means that the radioactivity for given nuclide was not found and it should be considered as stable. Take into account that this database is somewhat old (February 1999) and studies in the last decade are not reflected. --V1adis1av (talk) 17:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

No stability beyond holmium?

If I understand the list right and all isotopes of elements Holmium (Ho) and beyond are really predicted seriously to be radioactive, then we should write that in other articles. Or are those modes only theoretical decays what would happen if this isotope would be unstable? then we should delete them. If Dysprosium (which is far away from Bismuth) was the last really stable element, then we would have to write that in several other articles! Because after Dy there come some common elements (W, Pt, Au, Hg, Pb) which would then be called "radioactive". Especially for gold, this is shocking if it decays to less valuable Iridium and then Re, Ta, Lu, Tm, Ho, tb so, admittedly on an extremely long run, all gold will become terbium (Tb)which we should write in the articles if verifiable! --Eu-151 (talk) 18:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

It's perfectly fine to reference the theoretical prediction in this article. However, because reality doesn't always follow theory, and because of the very problem you're addressing, we've taken the somewhat more conservative view that isotopes are deemed "stable" unless they have been experimentally proven to be radioactive (by direct observation of decay) or else (in the famous case of tellurium-128) by confirmation of a radiogenic daughter (which gets us out to 10^24 yrs). SBHarris 19:23, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

It would be fine "to reference the theoretical prediction in this article", but no reference for the predictions is given, AFAICS. The category "theoretically unstable" should be removed unless a reliable reference is provided. (Also, their predicted probability of decay should be vastly higher than that of proton decay for that category to make sense.) --Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

It's not really that gold-197 is "radioactive". It is created a decay chain with alpha and beta minus decay, the decay chain will end at gadolinium-157.Cristiano Toàn (talk) 03:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The above remark is extremely unclear and it is practically useless.
98.67.96.19 (talk) 17:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The predicted decay chain of Au-197 would be:

Au-197 → Ir-193 → Re-189 → Os-189 → W-185 → Re-185 → Ta-181 → Lu-177 → Hf-177 → Yb-173 → Er-169 → Tm-169 → Ho-165 → Tb-161 → Dy-161 → Gd-157 → spontaneous fission. Double sharp (talk) 15:10, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Gold-197 is predict to be undergone by alpha decay because gold-197 nuclide has a slightly heavier than sum of masses of alpha particle and Iridium-197 nuclide Each Gold-197 atom has a mass 196.9665687u Iridium-193 atom has a mass 192.9629264u Alpha partilce 4.0026025u Each gold-197 atom decays will release 0.968 MeVCristiano Toàn (talk) 02:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Still unreferenced

The discussed claim that almost two-thirds of all isotopes currently considered to be stable are theoretically unstable (which is repeated all over the article) is still unreferenced after a full two years! If no proper reference for this very strong claim can be given, practically the whole section Stable_nuclide#Still-unobserved_decay, as well as lots of other article text, would need to be removed because it's based on this unreferenced claim. If it's really "definitely not OR" it does desperately need a citation soon. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:45, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

The "isotopes of element X" pages were edited by XinaNicole in 2011 to include this information on predicted decay modes, referencing it to Nucleonica's Universal Nuclide Chart http://www.nucleonica.net/unc.aspx (registration required). I added this link as a reference for this section. (BTW, this predicted info is also in the element infoboxes.) Double sharp (talk) 04:07, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks; so you can confirm the claims from that chart?

But if this is the only source and there are no secondary sources discussing the theoretical instability of most of the stable isotopes, I think we should still reduce the (IMO) undue weight of discussing these "theoretically instable" isotopes in the article. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

It didn't always require registration, and when XinaNicole added it it didn't: so I assume it must have had this info. But I'm not sure now. Double sharp (talk) 12:59, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I see; I thought you might have registered there yourself (I haven't either). But the claims in this article were already added in 2009 by V1adis1av, and he only gave a reference for the fact that "many stable [...] nuclides have positive energy release in different kinds of radioactive decays", not for the decays themselves. It's quite possible that XinaNicole's Nucleonica source is also only for the positive mass difference. IMO, it's clearly OR to assume that any process with positive energy is predicted to occur; there are many other conservation laws in nuclear physics... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 14:39, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

It may well give actual predictions for some of the relevant nuclides, though, because XinaNicole also added predicted half-lives for some of these nuclides, such as ¹⁹⁶Hg. Double sharp (talk) 14:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got those predicted half-lives. I think it was from that site, but I can't be sure, since it's been three years since I worked on those articles. It definitely wasn't OR on my part, but I can't say for sure that it wasn't someone else's OR. Sorry I can't be of more help XinaNicole (talk) 06:42, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in. Then I will try to substantially reduce the "theoretically unstable" claims in this article if we can't exclude them being OR. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't remember seeing these figures anywhere on WP before XinaNicole's work. It may well be Nucleonica's research or some other site's research, in which case it would be fine (but still perhaps undue weight). A clue comes from list of nuclides, which lists predicted decay energies for these nuclei and states that almost all data is from Jagdish K. Tuli, Nuclear Wallet Cards, 7th edition, April 2005, Brookhaven National Laboratory, US National Nuclear Data Center. If the decay energies are listed, then surely the decay modes must be as well. The half-lives are sketchier and may or may not be OR. I'll have to check some more. Double sharp (talk) 15:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The decay energies would indeed only make sense together with the corresponding decay modes; but it's obviously possible (even easy) for a source (or a WP editor) to calculate hypothetical decay energies without predicting that the decays do occur. (Predicting half-lives is much harder.) Even if the decay data AND the decay predictions are backed up by Nucleonica or some other site, I don't think the article should give the predictions as definitive facts, since exceptional claims like these require several high-quality (preferably non-primary or at least peer-reviewed) sources. But I'd be glad if such sources could be found... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:52, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

References

Policy

Wouldn't most physicist say that if there's lower energy (double electron capture, double beta) then it's very likely it's not stable it's merely very long half life —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.170.59.139 (talk) 21:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but predicting it is one thing, seeing it is another. Hydrogen, and indeed all elements, are predicted to be unstable by proton decay, which is actually allowed (though rare) in standard theory. It hasn't yet been seen. If we put in all the things that could happen in theory, there would be no stable isotopes AT ALL. SBHarris 23:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's remember also that there have been theories which have been accepted as standard by "most physicists" but later turned out to be wrong. A responsible encyclopedia must distinguish between observed facts and unproved theories, even if they are consensus theories. Dirac66 (talk) 00:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

What you say above, Dirac 66, is a very rare event! For common people like you and me, THEY ARE NOT EVEN WORTH BEING CONCERNED ABOUT. Why do you worry about something that happens in one case out of a million? I suggest that you pay attention to the 999,999 and that would do you a lot more good.
98.67.96.19 (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Confusing sentence in Definition of stability ...

To Sbharris: I am trying to understand the meaning of an already confusing sentence to which you added the words "greater than" which confuse me even more. The sentence now reads "The shortest half-lives of easily detectable primordially present radioisotopes are around 700 million years (e.g., ²³⁵U), with a lower present limit on detection of primordial isotopes of half live greater than 80 million years (e.g., ²⁴⁴Pu)."

Is the following suggested rewrite equivalent? "Primordially present radioisotopes are easily detected with half-lives as short as 700 million years (e.g., ²³⁵U), although some primordial isotopes have been detected with half lives as short as (greater than?) 80 million years (e.g., ²⁴⁴Pu)."

Also, the 244Pu article says (in the first sentence) that the half-life is 80 million years, so what does "greater than" mean here? Dirac66 (talk) 14:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I should re-write this so it's impossible to misunderstand. We can detect the primordial presense of isotopes that have half lives greater than 80 million years. For those that half half lives shorter than that, there's too little around to see with present methods. This could change. For the cutoff between Pu-244 and the nuclide with the next-shorter half-life, see list of nuclides. Meanwhile, I'll try to clarify this. SBHarris 18:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Tellurium-128

I think we should take a tellurium-128 in "stable" isotopes category because with the half life 2.2x10^24 years so that mean only one decay in about 1925 days if we have a mole of this isotopeCristiano Toàn (talk) 10:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Our policy has been to declare any isotope that has a measured halflife (by any means) to be fair game for being a radioisotope (otherwise you get into all the problems mentioned in this article and wind up with only 90 stable isotopes left, all in the first 40 elements).

Te-128 has the longest half life known, but not from direct measurement but geochronology. I believe from measurement by mass spectrometry of excess (stable) Xe-128 (to which Te-128 it has decayed by double beta decay) in rocks containing Te-128. It's a sort of Te/Xe dating, but using the date of the rock found by other means to inversely measure the half life of the Te-128 in it. 2e24 years is what came out. Think of a mole sitting in a rock for a billion years-- If you get one decay every 5.3 years then you end up with 200 million atoms of extra Xe-128. Perhaps enough to count a few. SBHarris 03:39, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Maximum stability atomic number fallback rationale

Also note that if the list is ordered by atomic number, we have OE81Tl205 in 4th place behind EE82Pb206, EE82Pb207, and EE82Pb208. And we used to have OE83Bi209 as first, until it was reported that a few of them would occasionally emit an alpha (2He4) particle and drop back into the OE81Tl205 category. And it is the theory that all Bi209 isotopes are identical that causes this event to make us believe that there are no stable 83Bi209 atoms.WFPM (talk) 23:31, 15 April 2011 (UTC) And the estimated halflife of Bi209 is 1.9x!0^19 years. Or maybe an OE83Bi209 atom is just an OETl205 atom with a loose alpha particle??. Incidentally, after the OE83Bi209 atom emits an alpha particle, what does it do with the 2 extra electrons? They must be emitted, with some amount of unaccounted for kinetic energy. Does anybody know these details?WFPM (talk) 17:49, 16 April 2011 (UTC) http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/17319

If spontaneous fission, why not spontaneous fusion?

We are saying that any nuclide which is heavier than its potential fission products is theoretically unstable to spontaneous fission, no matter how low the probability. Obviously a nuclide lighter than the iron peak can't transform into matter with higher binding energy in isolation. But most matter, at least for elements beyond the lightest, is not isolated but part of condensed matter. If two nuclides are in proximity, and their fusion would potentially release energy, isn't there some tunneling probability, no matter how small, that the two would eventually fuse, releasing energy?
If it's true that in condensed matter, nuclides both below and above the iron peak will fuse or fission towards iron, why list the former unambiguously as "stable"? --JWB (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for your claims, or is this original research? Also, stability is normally defined for an isolated nucleus - every isotope will fuse and/or decay when it collides with another nucleus. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:51, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

"Spontaneous fusion"? What an odd idea. It never happens. For example, two helium nuclei or two carbon nuclei ever fuse with one another (yielding beryllium in the first case), no matter how extreme the conditions are. Also, as Roentgenium111 pointed out, stability of nuclei is something that is considered one atom at a time. Is one atom of U-235 stable? No. Is one atom of oxygen-16 stable. Yes.<be>98.67.96.19 (talk) 17:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Under extreme conditions, "spontaneous" fusion does occur, e.g. for hydrogen inside the Sun. But since hydrogen has a "half-life" of billions of years even there, the rate of spontaneous fusion under standard conditions is likely unmeasurably small (but not quite zero, when several atoms are present).--Roentgenium111 (talk) 14:45, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I think spontaneous fission for nuclides ≥ Nb-93 is just a hypothetical, since it has never been observed for any nuclides with mass number < 232, just like the proton decay, thus I think the heaviest theoretically stable nuclide is Dy-164 instead of Zr-92. Besides, none of the "stable" nuclides with mass number < 165 satisfy the condition of spontaneous fission: ${\frac {Z^{2}}{A}}\geq 47$ (e.g. for Nb-93, we have (41^2)/93 = 18.0752..., which is much smaller than 47).

No, proton decay is very different. It would require new physics, while spontaneous fission above Zr-92 is allowed by energetic considerations. Note that the 47 value is much too strict: ²⁵⁰Cm decays primarily through SF, but its value of Z²/A is only 36.864. Double sharp (talk) 02:24, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

But for Nb-93 this value of Z²/A is much low..., I do not believe that any nuclide with A ≤ 224 can spontaneous fission.

All that means is that the fission barrier is probably very high and thus the half-life is very long. It has no bearing on whether or not the fission is energetically possible. The barriers for many of the other predicted decay modes are also very high: some of the stable Pb isotopes have predicted half-lives going above 10¹⁰⁰ years. Double sharp (talk) 23:46, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think the 46 isotopes in the list have half-lives < 10³⁵ years, but the 61 isotopes in the list have half-lives > 10⁵⁰ years. However, I don's think the 56 nuclides in the list will undergo spontaneous fission, since their ${\frac {Z^{2}}{A}}$ is much smaller than 47.

Whether or not the decay has been searched for does not necessarily have anything to do with how long the half-lives are actually going to be. All four stable isotopes of Pb have experimental lower bounds for their alpha decay: they are 1.4×10²⁰ years for ²⁰⁴Pb, 2.5×10²¹ years for ²⁰⁶Pb, 1.9×10²¹ years for ²⁰⁷Pb, and 2.6×10²¹ years for ²⁰⁸Pb. However, if you look at that very same paper, the predicted half-lives from theoretical models are far greater: 2.3×10³⁵ to 1.2×10³⁷ years for ²⁰⁴Pb, 1.8×10⁶⁵ to 6.7×10⁶⁸ years for ²⁰⁶Pb, 3.6×10¹⁵² to 3.4×10¹⁸⁹ years for ²⁰⁷Pb, and 1.2×10¹²⁴ to 7.4×10¹³² years for ²⁰⁸Pb. It should be fairly clear that while these decays have been searched for, probably no one seriously expects them to actually be seen in the near future. That is why we should simply focus on one measure: have we experimentally seen decay or not? Whether decay has been searched for is interesting but is not terribly useful as a dividing line. Double sharp (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Stable isotopes

H-1, H-2 He-3, He-4 Li-6, Li-7 Be-9 B-10, B-11 C-12, C-13 N-14, N-15 O-16, O-17, O-18 F-19 Ne-20, Ne-21, Ne-22 Na-23 Mg-24, Mg-25, Mg-26 Al-27 Si-28, Si-29, Si-30 P-31 S-32, S-33, S-34, S-36 Cl-35, Cl-37 (Ar-36), Ar-38, Ar-40 K-39, K-41 (Ca-40), Ca-42, Ca-43, Ca-44, (Ca-46) Sc-45 Ti-46, Ti-47, Ti-48, Ti-49, Ti-50 V-51 (Cr-50), Cr-52, Cr-53, Cr-54 Mn-55 (Fe-54), Fe-56, Fe-57, Fe-58 Co-59 (Ni-58), Ni-60, Ni-61, Ni-62, Ni-64 Cu-63, Cu-65 (Zn-64), Zn-66, Zn-67, Zn-68, (Zn-70) Ga-69, Ga-71 Ge-70, Ge-72, Ge-73, Ge-74 As-75 (Se-74), Se-76, Se-77, Se-78, (Se-80) Br-79, Br-81 (Kr-78), Kr-80, Kr-82, Kr-83, Kr-84, (Kr-86) Rb-85 (Sr-84), Sr-86, Sr-87, Sr-88 Y-89 Zr-90, Zr-91, Zr-92, (Zr-94) Nb-93 (Mo-92), Mo-94, Mo-95, Mo-96, Mo-97, (Mo-98) Tc-->No stable isotopes! (Ru-96), Ru-98, Ru-99, Ru-100, Ru-101, Ru-102, (Ru-104) Rh-103 (Pd-102), Pd-104, Pd-105, Pd-106, Pd-108, (Pd-110) Ag-107, Ag-109 (Cd-106), (Cd-108), Cd-110, Cd-111, Cd-112, (Cd-114) In-113 (Sn-112), Sn-114, Sn-115, Sn-116, Sn-117, Sn-118, Sn-119, Sn-120, (Sn-122), (Sn-124) Sb-121, Sb-123 (Te-120), Te-122, Te-124, Te-125, Te-126 I-127 (Xe-124), (Xe-126), Xe-128, Xe-129, Xe-130, Xe-131, Xe-132, (Xe-134) Cs-133 (Ba-132), Ba-134, Ba-135, Ba-136, Ba-137, Ba-138 La-139 (Ce-136), (Ce-138), Ce-140, (Ce-142) Pr-141 Nd-142, (Nd-143), (Nd-145), (Nd-146), (Nd-148) Pm-->No stable isotopes! (Sm-144), (Sm-149), (Sm-150), (Sm-152), (Sm-154) (Eu-153) (Gd-154), (Gd-155), Gd-156, Gd-157, Gd-158, (Gd-160) Tb-159 (Dy-156), (Dy-158), Dy-160, (Dy-161), (Dy-162), (Dy-163), Dy-164 (Ho-165) (Er-162), (Er-164), (Er-166), (Er-167), (Er-168), (Er-170) (Tm-169) (Yb-168), (Yb-170), (Yb-171), (Yb-172), (Yb-173), (Yb-174), (Yb-176) (Lu-175) (Hf-176), (Hf-177), (Hf-178), (Hf-179), (Hf-180) (Ta-180m), (Ta-181) (W-182), (W-183), (W-184), (W-186) (Re-185) (Os-184), (Os-187), (Os-188), (Os-189), (Os-190), (Os-192) (Ir-191), (Ir-193) (Pt-192), (Pt-194), (Pt-195), (Pt-196), (Pt-198) (Au-197) (Hg-196), (Hg-198), (Hg-199), (Hg-200), (Hg-201), (Hg-202), (Hg-204) (Tl-203), (Tl-205) (Pb-204), (Pb-206), (Pb-207), (Pb-208) Bi or heavier-->No more stable isotopes! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.126.202.81 (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

There is also a list in this article. Did you take time to read it? Do you disagree with it? SBHarris 22:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

He or she appears to disagree with the inclusion in Te-123 in the list in the article. Double sharp (talk) 11:14, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, they are out of date (see below). Te-123 has a half life at least 5x10^19 years and probably much longer. It is presently observationally stable. SBHarris 02:55, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I know, and was just clarifying the situation! :-) Double sharp (talk) 10:56, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Te-123

Why Te-123 is stable? It's half-life is 5.99E14 year right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.126.202.81 (talk) 15:20, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

No. See isotopes of tellurium. Decay of Te-123 by EC was claimed to have been observed, but more recent observations have not found it, and the report was apparently in error. Te-123 is still observationally stable. In theory it has a half life that has been calculated (as do many other "stable" nuclides"), but (see list of nuclides) our policy here has been to include only nuclides that have more direct evidence of decay, in terms of observation, or historical measurment of decay products in old rocks. SBHarris 02:54, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm quite curious why ¹²³Te is so stable. It must decay, as its electron capture to ¹²³Sb releases energy. What I'm wondering is what inhibits it from this decay (and why the energy released is so small). Double sharp (talk) 15:15, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Apparently one needs to be a nuclear physicist to understand it. [4]. An even-proton odd-neutron nuclide is capturing an electron to be an odd-proton even-neutron nuclide, and isn't happy about it or that eager to do it. The various influences lined up on both sides of this are apparently nearly balanced. There are a lot of things in nature that are energetically favorable that just don't happen. Decay of all the "stable" nuclides heavier than Z=40, for example. Perhaps we just live on the wrong time scale, is all. SBHarris 05:09, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Part of it must be that ¹²³Sb has spin 7/2+ and ¹²³Te 1/2+, so the beta decay would be second-forbidden. The mass difference is also really tiny (¹²³Sb: 122.9042140; ¹²³Te: 122.9042700), so it is no wonder that ¹²³Te is grumpy about having to decay theoretically. Double sharp (talk) 12:28, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Cristiano Toàn (talk) 10:26, 4 March 2023 (UTC)two neighbour beta decay cases ¹¹³Cd (mass 112.9044017, spin 1/2+) to ¹¹³In (mass 112.904058, spin 9/2+) mass difference 0.0003437u (energy 0.3201 MeV) ¹¹⁵In (mass 114.903878, spin 9/2+) ¹¹⁵Sn (mass 114.903342, spin 1/2+) mass difference 0.000536u (energy 0.499 MeV)

References

Tabulate the Information

The information on how many elements have how many stable isotopes ought to be TABULATED rather than listed in a very long sentence in the text. The tabulated information would be much faster to read and to grasp.
I tried to tabulate thie information this morning, but then someone who must believe that he OWNS this article reverted my changes. I do not appreciate it. If you did not like my tabulated information, you should have worked on making a better table rather than greedily reverting the work that I had done.
You might not believe it, but tabulated information is often a much better way to present it for ease of comprehension. Otherwise, why would bother making and using tables?
98.67.96.19 (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps our web-reader programs differ? I see no sentence. I see a carriage-return delimited WP:LIST. This works fine for the purpose, but I have no objection to a table. I fail to find the edit where somebody reverted your conversion of a delimited LIST to a table. Could you point it out? SBHarris 18:31, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Valley of nuclear stability - general problems

I've been thinking of creating an article on Valley of nuclear stability, but ran across this article. There seems to be a general confusion of articles on this subject. Nuclear valley (which is vague) redirects here, whereas Valley of stability redirects to Island of stability (which is wrong!). I am not so sure that "stable nuclide" is quite the place for a redirect from "valley of stability". I propose a new article on Valley of nuclear stability - such an article would provide an umbrella discussion of stable/unstable nuclei. At the very least, the term "Valley of nuclear stability" or "Valley of stability" is a basic concept in nuclear physics that needs a better description/discussion; there are ample available citations for this term ("Vally of stability" alone is a term that seems overly generic, if one is not aware of its nuclear context). Incidentally, this article has as its first figure a "Graph of nuclides..."... I've just learned this is called a "Segre' chart", a term this article should define. I got here by working on beta decay and neutron. I had started a "sandbox" version of the proposed article at User:Bdushaw/Valley of nuclear stability; still in chicken-scratch phase. The reference "Nucleus: A trip into the heart of matter". By R. Mackintosh, J. Ai-Khalili, B. Jonson, and T. Pena, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2001 ISBN: 0-801 8-6860-2 url: http://www.nupecc.org/pans/Data/CHAPT_6.PDF seemed illuminating. What do people think? Bdushaw (talk) 22:23, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Meanwhile there is also Table of nuclides - this article, and others, have considerable redundancy with this one. Bdushaw (talk) 22:34, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Awful article

What an awful article. I strongly disagree with the first sentence of the lead:"Stable nuclides are nuclides that are not radioactive and so (unlike radionuclides) do not spontaneously undergo radioactive decay." Although I understand that the lead should be simple, this sentence is simply wrong without the additional qualification that they are isotopes which have no MEASURABLE radioactivity (or "observable", if you want). I forget who it was who said we should make our statements as simple as possible, but no simpler, and I argue that hiding the SCIENCE (observational aspects) of the definition is misleading. There are a variety of other problems with the article, most of them fairly minor. Primordial is used before it is explained and should not imho ever be used to mean of an age of ~~4.5 billion years when the article also discussed the Big Bang (13.8 billon years ago). And speaking of the big bang, this article implies that many of the stable isotopes were created during primordial nucleosynthesis (see what I mean about the word 'primordial'?), and they were (generally) NOT. I see no reason that the sentence "Many naturally occurring radioisotopes (another 51 or so, for a total of about 339) exhibit still shorter half-lives than 68 million years, but they are made freshly, as daughter products of decay processes of primordial nuclides (for example, radium from uranium) or from ongoing energetic reactions, such as cosmogenic nuclides produced by present bombardment of Earth by cosmic rays (for example, 14C made from nitrogen)." is such a run on and so long. Add to that the fact that by "bombardment of Earth" what is really meant is collision of cosmic rays (link) with atoms in the Earth's atmosphere. (which is mostly what happens.) The article has obviously been added to by more recent contributors who for some reason did not remover earlier and conflicting verbiage. It needs a entire make-over by someone more articulate than I am ("present bombardment" ?!?!?). It should NOT, imho, take a close reading of the entire article to find out that 1. We don't know which, IF ANY, of the elements are infinitely (indefinitely) stable, 2. Our definition of stability is constrained by the methods we use, and those methods are continuing to improve, and 3. For more or less historical reasons, we regard 80 elements as having stable isotopes. I strongly doubt the claim that the "island of stability" is theorized to contain STABLE isotopes - Citation needed. (and as far as THAT article, it's in worse shape than this one! Nuclear shell model? and I thought we were in the 21st Century! Explaining nuclear stability in terms of the shell model is an exercise in numerology, imho; too bad someone more knowledgeable in the science hasn't contributed.) Oh, and I wonder about what "do not spontaneously undergo radioactive decay" MEANS in a Universe filled with neutrinos - do we really know? Just showing my ignorance, probably, but still...the existence of particles which only rarely interact with normal matter in such high abundance (here I'm speaking of not only neutrinos but also dark matter particles) makes "spontaneous" a bit questionable to me. One last thought: It might be helpful for a short lucid explanation of the relationship and differences between the terms "nuclide", "isotope", and "stable element".173.184.23.223 (talk) 17:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Presentation

I think the list of stable isotopes here might better be presented as a Segrè chart (and then it would make sense to also show the other primorial radioisotopes, though maybe not ²⁴⁴Pu and ¹⁴⁶Sm which fall in a weird limbo where some must be around but experimentally finding them is seriously problematic). Double sharp (talk) 03:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Mistakes in the figure/table

The figure figure legend is incorrect. The blue region has more protons than neutrons and represents beta plus emitting nuclides instead of beta min. The orange/pink region represents beta min instead of beta plus.

The figure appears to have noticable mistakes. It indicates that tungsten (74 protons) has no stable isotopes (all are marked yellow for α-decay). Many other stable isotopes that do not lie on the main diagonal are also missing (e.g. most calcium isotopes are missing, including ⁴⁰Ca).

A related issue is with another similar image [5] which does have more off-diagonal stable elements, but also lists tungsten as unstable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.126.136.53 (talk) 15:09, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

The info seems to be from NUBASE, which often lists still-theoretical decay modes like these as if they had actually been observed. Double sharp (talk) 02:40, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

That image [6] has a very serious error: Dy163 is stable (even theoretically stable, this is the second-heaviest theoretically stable nuclide), but this image shows that it can undergo beta-decay (in fact, it can undergo beta-decay only when fully ionized (i.e. ¹⁶³Dy⁶⁶⁺)).

Not quite, actually: the image puts under ¹⁶³Dy "STABLE", but then immediately self-contradicts by writing "β−: 100.00%". Maybe it's about the bound-state beta decay, but in that case I think the black stable colouring should win out, not the pink beta-minus decay... Double sharp (talk) 08:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The chart is looking better. However, the stable nuclides ³⁶Ar and ⁴⁰Ca are still miscolored as beta-plus emitters (perhaps because of the theoretical possibility of rare double electron capture, but most sources including NUBASE consider them stable). 98.111.206.120 (talk) 16:28, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Appeal for the People (or Myself)

I must object to the listing of elements prior in nuclear number to Bi that have various arguments for stability. The point is to, as the article says, summarize "stable nuclides." The article confuses the issue because of the multiple addenda and footnotes on the list. It's sufficient to note Tc as an exception and close the table after Pb. It's reasonably known (but worth discussion in the main text) in informed circles that Pb is the last stable element, as opposed to Bi, but I wouldn't bicker over Pb vs Bi. That the latter requires ages as to its half-life beyond the billions of years of our universe is of course why our forbears though it stable.

But to predict via endless parentheticals and footnote indicators (asterisks, carets, daggers, etc) with which the list offered is burdened does not serve the Wiki population well. This should just recite the stable nuclides we know, with one style of asterisk for those that like Bi we know to be radioactive on a universe-exceeding timeline such as its at 10^19 years. Predicting decay on the order of years that exceed Bi (already at an almost incomprehensible order of magnitude at 10^19) just confuses the issue and should be moved to another article, perhaps, "Theoretically Radioactive Nuclides." This article should answer a reasonably educated layperson looking to the answer as to what are the stable (or, within the asterisk, observationally stable) nuclides. My humble. Citizen Sunshine (talk) 05:28, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Citizensunshine: +1 Double sharp (talk) 13:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for taking my recommendation seriously; the revised table is much more legible and useful as an explanator of "stable nuclides." Citizen Sunshine (talk) 04:52, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Summary

The theoretically stable nuclides are those with the lowest energies among the isobars A = 1 ~ 142 (5 and 8 excluded), 156 ~ 159, 163 ~ 164.

In terms of atomic numbers or neutron numbers, they are nuclides with Z ≤ 59 (N ≤ 82) that have the lowest energies among their isobars, and ¹⁴²Nd, ^156,157,158Gd, ¹⁵⁹Tb, ^163,164Dy. 129.104.241.162 (talk) 19:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC) Cristiano Toàn (talk) 02:12, 5 March 2024 (UTC) Theoretically decay chains of nuclides of light Lanthanide elements Series 4n+1: ¹⁵³Eu =>¹⁴⁹Pm => ¹⁴⁹Sm => ¹⁴⁵Nd => ¹⁴¹Ce => ¹⁴¹Pr (stable nuclide with 82 neutrons) Sereis 4n+3: ¹⁵⁵Gd => ¹⁵¹Sm => ¹⁵¹Eu => ¹⁴⁷Pm => ¹⁴⁷Sm => ¹⁴³Nd => ¹³⁹Ce => ¹³⁹La (stable nuclide with 82 neutrons). The only natural decay chain contains electron capture process Series 4n: ¹⁵⁶Dy => ¹⁵²Gd => ¹⁴⁸Sm => ¹⁴⁴Nd => ¹⁴⁰Ce (stable with 82 neutron). Note ¹⁵⁶Dy might also undergo double electron capture to ¹⁵⁶Gd. ¹⁵²Gd might also undergo double electron capture to ¹⁵²Sm

Nuclear Isomers

The nuclides with the same number of protans(Z)and neutrons(N) or the same mass number (A) which differ in energy states are called NUCLEAR ISOMERS.' 117.228.219.243 (talk) 07:53, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Binding Energy chart

The chart titled "Binding energy per nucleon of common isotopes" [Binding energy curve - common isotopes.svg] has a series of points indicated by either diamonds (most of them) or squares (about 20), and for the diamonds, some appear to be not quite vertically oriented. But there is no discussion anywhere associated with this chart to explain what the distinction is which is indicated by these two markers. Does anyone have a clue what this is about? 2001:56A:F0E9:9B00:68D7:C67D:3EFE:A8D1 (talk) 22:00, 18 March 2024 (UTC)JustSomeWikiReader