Gamow’s Alpha Decay Theory Revisited

In this section of Resonance, we invite readers to pose questions likely to be raised in a classroom situation. We may suggest strategies for dealing with them, or invite responses, or both. “Classroom” is equally a forum for raising broader issues and sharing personal experiences and viewpoints on matters related to teaching and learning science.

G Gamow’s alpha-decay theory (1928) is somewhat ad hoc for the reason that an alpha-particle inside a radioactive nucleus is supposed to move back and forth, through the dense mass of nucleons (retaining its identity), a number of times before it comes out. This short paper attempts to address this shortcoming via nuclear disintegration.