Balancing Nuclear Equations
Gamma Emission
The third type of radioactive emission is gamma ray emission. A gamma ray is photon of light that has the symbol 00γ. Since light does not have mass or charge, we use two zeroes in the symbol.
Gamma rays usually are emitted along with other particles. They do not usually appear in nuclear equations since they do not affect the numbers.
Alpha, beta and gamma emission are not the only types of nuclear reactions that can occur. We will now look at two other types of naturally occuring reactions (positron emission and electron capture) and one type of man-made nuclear reaction (transmutation).
