Radioactive Decay

Today in class, the lecture was over some of the different types of radioactive decay. These decays included alpha particle decay, beta particle decay, and gamma decay. Although I have seen and heard about alpha, beta, and gamma, I did not know what they pertained to, or what they did. I now know that they are radioactive reactions going on inside elements that can change the mass or atomic number of an element, or in the case of a gamma decay, just release photons without changing the mass or atomic number. During an alpha decay, an element's mass lowers by four, and it's number of protons decreases by two. In the case of a beta particle decay, an element does not experience any change in it's mass, however, it does experience an increase of one proton. The forms in which these decays take are helium nucleus for an alpha decay, an electron for a beta decay, and energy for a gamma decay. These types of radioactive decay are a common occurrence in elements.