Introduction

Readings
Spears & Zollman Chapter 21
Romer Chapter 13

Homework
Spears & Zollman Chapter 21 B4, C4, C9

The physical phenomenon of radioactivity was "discovered" accidentally by Bequerel in 1896. He was looking at fluorescence in rocks and placed a block of uranium salt on a covered photographic plate in a dark drawer. He developed the film expecting it to be dark (it had not been exposed to light) however he observed an intense silhouette beneath the location of the uranium.

Marie and Pierre Curie conducted a systematic study of Bequerel's discovery and demonstrated that certain elements (uranium, polonium etc) are radioactive. For more information and pictures of the Curies go to:
http://www.aip.org/history/curie/contents.htm

Marie Curie in 1903

In this tutorial we will examine alpha radioactivity in detail and see how the phenomenon is explained in terms of wave functions and tunneling.