Radioactivity detection, theory

In physics, speculative ideas often begin to seem much more reasonable when there is a theory to explain them. In 1933 Fermi advanced just such a theory, proposing that the electron and the neutrino were spontaneously created at the moment that a radioactive disintegration took place. At the same time, one of the neutrons in the nucleus was changed into a proton. Fermi showed that electron-neutrino production could be explained if one assumed the existence of a new force (now called the weak force). He concluded that the mass of the neutrino was probably near zero. This would explain why it hadn t been detected. 

Finston HL (1971b) Nuclear radiations characteristics and detection. In Kolthoff IM, Elving PJ and Sandell EB, eds. Treatise on analytical chemistry. Part I (Theory and practice), Vol 9, section D-6, Radioactive methods, pp. 5427-5466. John Wiley Sons, New York. 

Voltammetry is of interest as a detection method for DNA due to the fact that it provides high sensitivities and that the equipment required is relatively cheap in comparison with techniques such as fluorescence, surface plasmon resonance, and microfabricated cantilevers, while safety issues exist with radioactive labels. Below we summarize the voltammetry theory necessary to develop and test DNA sensors. 

This is an extremely detailed subject involving not only detection systems for radiation (or its surrogates electronic currents, radioactive isotopes, etc.) but also control theory, computer representations of data and their interpretation, and automatic systems that take over when events happen too fast for human intervention. 

Experimental evidence for the atomic theory was not long in coming. Early in the twentieth century J. J. Thomson identified cathode rays as particles of electricity, Rutherford and Soddy explained radioactivity in atomic terms, and Crookes s spinthariscope enabled individual atomic disintegrations to be detected (Chapter 11). In 1905 Albert Einstein (1879-1955) showed that the Brownian movement of minute suspended particles could be explained in terms of molecular... 

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