[seqfan] Re: Atomic number of n-th element in the "neptunium series"

[Felix Fröhlich]

"Why Neptunium 237?"

I chose it because it seems to have a long decay chain. There may be other
lements with longer chains, I am not sure. Also, I thought it was
interesting that the chain cannot have progressed past Bi-209 naturally due
to the extremely long half-life of Bi-209.

Thanks for your suggestion regarding making each term the number of the
most common element. That sounds like a good idea.

Regards
Felix

2018-04-19 1:55 GMT+02:00 Frank Adams-watters via SeqFan <
seqfan at list.seqfan.eu>:

> If this is added, I think each term should be the atomic number of the
> most common element at that step.
> This "stabilizes " the sequence: otherwise at step n, if you discovered
> their was another decay product
> occurring only with, say, probability 0.001%, the sequence would have to
> be changed so that a(n) = 0.
>
> Second, why Neptunium 237? Is there something special about it?
>
> Franklin T. Adams-Watters
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Felix Fröhlich <felix.froe at gmail.com>
> To: Sequence Fanatics Discussion list <seqfan at list.seqfan.eu>
> Sent: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 7:41 am
> Subject: [seqfan] Atomic number of n-th element in the "neptunium series"
>
> Dear SeqFans,here is an idea for a sequence related to radioactive decay
> of a chemical
> element:
> Atomic number of n-th element in the "neptunium series", the decay chain of
> neptunium-237, or 0 if the n-th link of the chain consists of more than one
> element. For an overview, please see
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Neptunium_series
> The sequence starts 93, 91, 92, 90, 88, 89, 87, 85, 83, 0, 82, 83, 81a(10)
> (if the offset is 1) is 0, because bismuth-213 decays into
> polonium-213 and thallium-209, both of which in turn decay into lead-209.
> I don't know if this sequence is interesting. The "0" term may be a bit
> unsatisfactory, but I am not sure of a better way to resolve the issue of
> an
>  isotope decaying into two daughter isotopes at the moment.
>
> Best regardsFelix Fröhlich
>
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>
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