Wave mechanics and radioactive disintegration

AFTER the exponential law in radioactive decay had been discovered in 1902, it soon became clear that the time of disintegration of an atom was independent of the previous history of the

atom and depended solely on chance. Since a nuclear particle must be held in the nucleus by an attractive field, we must, in order to explain its ejection, arrange for a spontaneous change

from an attractive to a repulsive field. It has hitherto been necessary to postulate some special arbitrary ‘instability’ of the nucleus; but in the following note it is pointed out that

disintegration is a natural consequence of the laws of quantum mechanics without any special hypothesis. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription

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Princeton University, July 30. https://www.nature.com/nature RONALD W. GURNEY & EDW. U. CONDON Authors * RONALD W. GURNEY View author publications You can also search for this author

inPubMed Google Scholar * EDW. U. CONDON View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS

ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE GURNEY, R., CONDON, E. Wave Mechanics and Radioactive Disintegration. _Nature_ 122, 439 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122439a0 Download citation * Issue Date: 22

September 1928 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122439a0 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable

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