Where did the data for this table come from? Checking Pb-208 (a memorable double... | Hacker News

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		exmadscientist on May 30, 2021 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: How counting neutrons explains nuclear waste Where did the data for this table come from? Checking Pb-208 (a memorable double-magic nucleus), it should really not be shown as undergoing alpha decay when none of the major ENDF tables show that. There is an unsourced remark on Wikipedia that this might happen, but given the half-life, I do not think scientists have ever measured a single such decay... so probably not best to include it. And if one spot check shows a mistake, how many more are there? It's a big table and ENDF data files are not pretty things....

jasoncrawford on May 30, 2021 [–]

You can see the table here: https://people.physics.anu.edu.au/~ecs103/chart/?ShowStable=...

When I click on the lead-208 box, it credits data from:

NUBASE2020: https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-1137/abddae AME2020: https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-1137/abddb0

It also only says that alpha decay is “possible”, not that it happens with any frequency—in fact, it lists Pb-208 as stable.

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