Talk:Beta particle

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The article says, "Beta particles may be stopped by a few milimeters of aluminium. A beta particle's flight is ten times farther than an alpha particle, as it ionizes a tenth less than an alpha particle." 'A tenth less than' is equivalent to saying '90 percent as much as'. I suspect that the intended meaning was 'a tenth as much as'. Can someone who knows a whit about physics confirm this? --Jtoomim 02:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

how does a neutron split up in beta- radiation?--219.65.21.133 16:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tidy up etc

I thought that the first line should refer to 'Beta particles' as this is the title of the article, and then went on to tidy a few things up.

I thought the paragraph about electron guns being a source of beta radiation should be removed. This is because, strictly speaking, beta radiation originates in the nucleus of an atom, whereas the electrons used in a television are produced from an electron gun - it's not the same thing!

--AjAldous 13:51, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] This sentence needs help

"It does this by converting one of the two up quarks in the proton into a down quark, leaving two down quarks and one up quark (a Neutron) to convert an up quark into a down quark a -1 charge is carried away to observe charge conservation (the W- boson, then the electron, as an up quark carries a charge of +2/3 and the down quark has a charge of -1/3; this quark is said to have undergone a flavor change)" This sentence (which is actually multiple fragments) has 81 words, and is incomprehensible to me! Olin 19:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Alas, my physics isn't up to the task, but yes, it's competely unreadable. Tannin 13:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I tried to clean up that sentence; hopefully it is more comprehensible now. I also added a subsection on inverse beta decay. Heather 19:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)