fun with Wikipedia

[eub]

I don't think I ever knew that such a thing as nuclear isomers existed. Coool.

Wikipedia says:

• Ta-180m is essentially stable, "present in all tantalum samples at about 1 part in 8300".
  
• Ta-180m can be induced to decay, with release of X-rays, by stimulation with weaker X-rays.
  
• It is not presently an economical source of power, being priced at $17 million per gram.

• technetium cow!

Comments

[hattifattener]

Hey! I've been dosed with ^99(m)Tc! Yay for nuclear medicine!

The Hafnium-isomer gamma-ray laser possibility pops up on rec.arts.sf.* every now and again. From the wikipedia article, I guess it's still not clear whether the stimulated-decay of that isomer actually happens...

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

That's really cool. It's also kind of scary: I'm sure I'm not the only person whose first thought on reading about induced decay was "holy cow that'd make quite a bomb."