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Among the 41 even-Z elements that have a stable nuclide, only two elements (argon and cerium) have no even–odd stable nuclides. One element (tin) has three. There are 24 elements that have one even–odd nuclide and 13 that have two even–odd nuclides. The lightest example of this type of nuclide is 3 2 He and the heaviest is 207 82 Pb.
In atomic physics, even–even (EE) nuclei are nuclei with an even number of neutrons and an even number of protons. Even-mass-number nuclei, which comprise 151/251 = ~60% of all stable nuclei, are bosons, i.e. they have integer spin. The vast majority of them, 146 out of 151, belong to the EE class; they have spin 0 because of pairing effects. [1]
Stable even–even nuclides number as many as three isobars for some mass numbers, and up to seven isotopes for some atomic numbers. Conversely, of the 251 known stable nuclides, only five have both an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons: hydrogen-2 ( deuterium ), lithium-6 , boron-10 , nitrogen-14 , and tantalum-180m .
A set of nuclides with equal proton number (atomic number), i.e., of the same chemical element but different neutron numbers, are called isotopes of the element. Particular nuclides are still often loosely called "isotopes", but the term "nuclide" is the correct one in general (i.e., when Z is not fixed).
A table or chart of nuclides is a two-dimensional graph of isotopes of the elements, in which one axis represents the number of neutrons (symbol N) and the other represents the number of protons (atomic number, symbol Z) in the atomic nucleus. Each point plotted on the graph thus represents a nuclide of a known or hypothetical chemical element.
Quantity (common name/s) (Common) symbol/s Defining equation SI units Dimension Number of atoms N = Number of atoms remaining at time t. N 0 = Initial number of atoms at time t = 0
An even number of protons or neutrons is more stable (higher binding energy) because of pairing effects, so even–even nuclides are much more stable than odd–odd. One effect is that there are few stable odd–odd nuclides: in fact only five are stable, with another four having half-lives longer than a billion years.
The stability of 4 He also leads to the absence of stable isobars of mass number 5 and 8; indeed, all nuclides of those mass numbers decay within fractions of a second to produce alpha particles. Magic effects can keep unstable nuclides from decaying as rapidly as would otherwise be expected.