Talk:Fission product

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My dim recollection is that there's quite a bit more Iodine & Caesium than the others, but I'll try and check. Linuxlad 11:16, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Someone has done a lot of work on this , which is good; but they haven't paragraphed or sign-posted it up well enough IMHO. The result is, I suggest, a very slabby article that few wanting to quickly learn about the subject are going to find approachable. Linuxlad 11:09, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

So, go to work DV8 2XL 15:38, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I always give the relevant author first refusal :-) Linuxlad


Dear Linuxlad,

I see your point that the article has lots of info but is not subdivided, if I subdivide it a little will that make it OK ? Cadmium 13:40, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

About biological half life, I think that a recent edit has made the page misleading. I think that it is important to know the difference between biological and physical halflife. I will write a new page on biological half life to make this clear.Cadmium 17:33, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to help clarify and straighten things out, but it seems I spent most of my time in the 'countermeasures' section which I'm not even sure belongs in this article (not going to take any action in that regard, though). I'll try to get back here when I have more time; in case I can't, I'll justify the cleanup tag since its poster did not.

  • information is duplicated within the article
  • Chernobyl, pharmacokinetics, and fission in general are addressed elsewhere in Wikipedia
    • While to some degree the broad scope of the article might be helpful, the general disorganization leads to a situation where:
  • the answer to the immediate question (What are the products of nuclear fission?) is obscured by topics not strictly relevant.

If these things were addressed (easier said than done; probably best to rewrite, especially considering the, er, less than enthusiastic use of citations regarding hard data and asserted standard practices), even if a shorter article with less information were the result, the article would be substantially improved. BryanHolland 07:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

Alright... I've undertaken a rewrite at Fission product/Rewrite. If anyone is inclined to contribute, feel free, but it doesn't seem that there's a lot of activity here. BryanHolland 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

XD That's the funniest thing I'v ever seen on Wp:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fission_product&oldid=115851024
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fission_product&direction=next&oldid=115851024
-lysdexia 14:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sum of fission product atomic masses

I'm not a physics student but I'm pretty sure this statement is wrong: "The sum of the atomic weight of the two atoms produced by the fission of one atom is always less than the atomic weight of the original atom. This is because some of the mass is lost as free neutrons and large amounts of energy." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.181.199 (talk) 05:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The statement seems OK, although I have not specifically checked any data. Whether or not unbound neutrons are produced, a small amount of atomic mass is converted into a [relatively] large amount of energy in this nuclear reaction. In nuclear reactions, there can be mass/energy interconversion. Why do you think it's wrong? H Padleckas (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I concur - the statement is correct. But it is oddly positioned here without context. PJG 04:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update

The previous definition was essentially circular - "A fission product is a product of fission." It was also so short it was easy to miss. So I've provided a more descriptive definition.

I also updated the next section (and retitled it) to focus on the physics. I want to improve this further with more discussion on formation, including a specific example and introduction to the concept of Yield, but need to do a little leg work. Stuff that was not direcly relevant to fission product physics or is covered later (examples of fission products are nicely given in tables) has been deleted. PJG 04:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a good start. I have also felt much of the article could use rewriting but the amount has been daunting. --JWB (talk) 00:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


I'm considering if the "Chemical nature of fission products" section should be deleted. FP chemistry is simply that of the element, and should be discussed under that element, or perhaps under the particular isotope if there is some important radioisotope chemistry (eg. Iodine would be discussed in 'Iodine' or possibly 'Iodine-131'). Putting chemistry in this article would duplicate information properly in other articles. Plus presently we really don't have any info on chemistry - the chart of electronegativity may be correct but is only a very small part of chemistry, and is sitting here without any discussion or context. Comments? PJG 22:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Giersp (talk • contribs)

I have now cleaned up the discussion on Yield. (Para on FP decay from nuclear weapons moved to later.) Two issues: First, I haven't figured out how to arrange the flow of text around the two Table templates, so it currently does not look nice. Second, the yield figure is at least unusual and I'd like to verify. Yield curves are smooth when expressed by mass number (as in the reference link). If they become very discontinuous after 1 year and expressed by element as per this figure, then that linkage should be explained.PJG 01:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Giersp (talk • contribs)

I've checked against some burnup results I have and get a quite similar yield graph when organized by element, so have verified this figure. It would be great to have the classical two-hump figure by mass number available as well, if someone is feeling ambitious! (I'm not sure why the SineBot keeps signing for me...) PJG 03:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Giersp (talk • contribs)
I have some yield data for U-235, Pu-239, and U-233 with thermal neutrons in a spreadsheet, and produced a couple of graphs using Excel's charting but am not totally satisfied with the formatting. I'm also considering using the data in an SVG graph which might offer more flexibility in format if one is willing to hand-edit SVG code, as well as being the officially preferred Wikipedia format these days. I've also wondered whether a log scale graph would better show the data for the low-yield fission products. --JWB (talk) 05:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


Sounds good - nice also to be able to illustrate eg U/Pu difference. However, I am unfamiliar with SVG format so can't help there. WRT log-scale, ref 2 in the article is to a web page with a log-scale graph. I think this looks good and is also how it is presented in my textbooks.99.230.71.169 (talk) 20:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)