This applet offers an interactive representation of radioactive decay series. The four series represented are Th232, Pu241, U238, and U235. Use the radio buttons to select the series that you would like to study.
The Sequence Info button displays a chart that depicts the path of the series with atomic number indicated on the vertical axis on the left, and number of neutrons shown along the bottom. Colored arrows represent alpha and beta decays. To return to the main user interface, click the Dismiss button.
Initially, a selected series contains all parent material, and the amount is represented by a colored bar on a vertical logarithmic scale. Each line represents a factor of ten. In order to step forward through the sequence by a specified number of years, you may type the appropriate number into the Time Step field and hit Enter. By hitting Enter repeatedly, you can view the series at successive intervals. A negative time step will backtack through the sequence.
Click the Animate button to automate the progress through the series. You can either choose a time step before you animate, or leave it at zero. If the time step is left at zero, the system will choose time steps to optimize viewing performance.
The scrollable Activity Log on the right keeps a record of the amounts of the parent and all daughter products for each time increment.
Yevgeniy Miretskiy: miretsky@ug.cs.sunysb.edu
visitors since March 21, 1997 [More Applets: Project Java Home]