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Richard Clark

Introducing the Wolfram Isotopes & Radiation Protection Reference Apps

September 19, 2012 —
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If you’re a chemist, a student, a mad scientist bent on destroying the earth for irrational reasons, an enlightened scientist bent on saving the population from the mad one, or as understandably enthused about isotopes and radiation as we are at Wolfram, then you’ll love the new Wolfram Isotopes Reference App and Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App. Released for $4.99 and $9.99, respectively, for the iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and PC, the apps are arguably the most comprehensive set of tools for the topics so far.

Since we understand we’re making a bold claim, allow us to demonstrate why the apps are so powerful.

Wolfram Isotopes Reference App

The Wolfram Isotopes Reference App lets you refer to isotopes by name, atomic number or mass (or a combination of the two), and proton and neutron count. You can also refer to isotopic properties by their amount of volume, moles, or radioactivity.

To show you what this can do, let’s open up “Properties by Amount” and compute with “Properties of isotope” set at Er 144 (on the premise that to err is to be one for forgiveness) with 0.25 as our molar amount. We can see that erbium-144 at 0.25 mol has a mass of 36 grams, a half-life of 200 nanoseconds, and a binding energy per nucleon of 7.958 MeV, among other results.

Wolfram Isotopes Reference App

That’s pretty cool, but suppose you’re a medical doctor sporting a stylish jacket. The Wolfram Isotopes Reference App also has a complete list of medical isotopes, so you can quickly refer to the isotopes you need information on. Because we think yttrium-86 is the most exciting medical isotope, let’s compute it.

Wolfram Isotopes Reference App

Powered by Wolfram|Alpha, the app gives you all of the decay properties, decay mode, a visualization of the decay chain and nearby isotopes, mass properties, quantum properties, excitations, and finally, a list of medical applications. We can see that yttrium-86 is used to treat cancer of the trachea, bronchus, and lung, as well as malignant melanoma of the skin and kidney cancer. Do you see why we think it’s clearly one of the best isotopes? It even has a nice name.

For a pleasing thematic consistency, we’ve also released the Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App. Let’s look at that.

Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App

Ionizing radiation and radioactive isotopes is best dealt with while taking proper safety precautions. The Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App lets you calculate the requirement for shielding different types of radiation and compute the CSDA range and absorptance. Discover equivalent doses of radiation or the decay chain for a radioactive isotope. You can convert units of the absorbed and/or equivalent dose, look at stopping power, exposure dose, and more.

So let’s look at a bit of what the app can do. We’ll load up Radiation Shielding and type in “U-238.” Lead radiation shielding comes in at 12.3 micrometers and water at 29.8 micrometers. We can also look at the various decay modes. If we look at spontaneous fission—perhaps the best kind of fission—we see the branching ratio is 5.45 X 10-7.

Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App

Now we’ll look at the Unit Converter, because units demand conversion. Let’s check out Specific Source Radioactivity.

Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App

We’ll convert 42 mCi per gram to PBq per milligram, because that sounds like something a scientist would do.

Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App

We see we get a result of 1.554 X 10-9 petabecquerels per milligram, but because computational knowledge makes us happy, we supply you with all sorts of additional conversions, too. We can also see the results for gigabecquerels per gram, becquerels per gram, becquerels per kilogram, and curies per kilogram.

As you can see, the Wolfram Isotopes Reference App and Wolfram Radiation Protection Reference App offer a deep level of computation on the subjects and can assist your work, research, or interests in a meaningful way. But are you looking for an app in a different field, or do you have any comments, criticisms, or concerns to share? As our goal is the democratization of knowledge and an app for every course, and more, we’d appreciate any feedback or suggestions you might have. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

6 Comments

I am curious as to when Andriod versions will be available.

Posted by Kale September 19, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    I’ll also be interested in the Android version ..

    Posted by Usman October 4, 2012 at 2:39 pm

Democracy of knowledge, then. Quite a meal for a mind and its umbra. As a genera, any linear standard of time is an apocryphal collection of data points graphically juxtaposed with matter such that physical forces are algorithms of which omega notations exist as said linear standard of time, be it unit integral or otherwise. Almost only counts in omega and NP hard news! Sundials and bolder-dash! By the light! Time is the shape of a rock transpondent with a stream of water’s electrons! Evolution and God-z are defined per such a universal abstract unit as NP special e.g. holy trinity is a close encounter of the genus 1 kind. Peaches equal apples equal taxonomies equal time equal graph theory… to think that math could one day bring balance to the forc..err…mass, that special magical power… “what art thine power levels of bishoprick white, oh chess master? ist thine church touring complete such that sufficient power is gathered to fiyer le mis-iles plasmitikos?!?” rail guns are for rook-e~z

Posted by Simon Valentine September 19, 2012 at 5:17 pm

-Does your app have anything (besides units conversion) superior to Nudat2 or NIST?

-Where does it get its data from?

Posted by G.A September 24, 2012 at 7:43 am

Also it might be nice to see a more extensive demo on some of its options and their depth.

Posted by G.A September 24, 2012 at 7:49 am

From your writeup above:

So let’s look at a bit of what the app can do. We’ll load up Radiation Shielding and type in “U-238.” Lead radiation shielding comes in at 12.3 micrometers and water at 29.8 micrometers. We can also look at the various decay modes. If we look at spontaneous fission—perhaps the best kind of fission—we see the branching ratio is 5.45 X 10-7.

With respect to radiation shielding, what do these numbers represent? The tenth-value layer? The half-value layer? Something else?

Posted by Brent Rogers February 24, 2015 at 5:09 pm