Will all of the elements of the periodic table ever decay over time?
547737
kiki is right, and most other answers wrong. 'Decay' is only applied to radioactive elements, and not all elements are radioactive. Many have *isotopes* that are radioactive, but aren't the stable form of the element. For example, carbon 14 is radioactive carbon and decays; Carbon 13, the stable version, will never do so. \n\nStable elements can go through fusion or fission, effectively changing them into something else (for example, carbon fuses at about 600 million degrees K), but that is *not* decay, since decay involves *spontaneous* emission of radiation, and that event only involves external factors, like a star exploding, and is not a property of the element - so, again, that can't be called 'decay'.\n\nSo, no, not all elements decay over time, only the ones that have no stable isotope - all elements above 83, bismuth.
54817
Are you referring to radioactive decay rates of isotopes of the three elements (copper, aluminum and iron) that you listed? If so, the first answer gave you some info, but you should check it (e.g., because copper has more than one isotope and they all have different half-lives). One can't specify a half-life for stainless steel because it's a mixture of metal elements whose ratio isn't specified by the generic name.\nIf instead you're referring to some measure of chemical activity, such as corrosion life, you haven't given enough details. (Well actually you haven't given enough details either way.) You could google corrosion rate, reaction rate and similar terms if you want to go further with that.
506373
No, radioactive decay is a nuclear process.  It's entirely unaffected by ordinary physical effects like heat, temperature, pressure or light.
923272
There are various trends/properties observable in the periodic table of elements:\n1. The elements in a column have same number of electrons in the outermost orbit of the atom. And this number is same as the column number. e.g. column no. 7 has elements (Fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, astatine) that have exactly 7 electrons in their outermost orbit.\n2. The last column (8) are all inert gases.\n3. First three columns are metalic (conductors), last four are insulators, the middle (4th) is semiconductor (with Carbon and Silicon).\n4. The number assigned to an element is same as no.of protons in the nucleus of the atom.\n5. As the atomic number increases, weight of element increases. Thus Hydrogen is the lightest of all. Also first few are gases, then liquids, then light metals, then heavy metals.\n6. First two columns are rare earths and earths.\n7. After and including Uranium (92), all elements are radioactive.\n\nYou can find more info online.
486649
The question is a little bit muddled, but I think I get the idea.\n\nThe atoms that are exposing the age of things are those atoms that are, or were, radioactive.  Any radioactive material decays.  It also decays at predictable, measurable rates that are distinctive to the element.  So you can date things that have radioactive elements (which most things do in some trace amount) or their decay elements within, based on how decayed they are.\n\nUranium-238 ultimately decays into lead.  You can date how long something containing uranium-238 has been in existence based on the ratio of Ur-238 to Pb.\n\nThis process operates at the same rate no matter what the temperature is.
221300
Measured by the decay of long-lived radioactive isotopes of elements that occur naturally in rocks and minerals and that decay with half lives of 700 million to more than 100 billion years to stable isotopes of other elements, scientists believe that the age of the earth is approximately 4.4 to 4.6 billion years old.
1048613
Non-radioactive elements are virtually indestructible at the atomic level, unless you're using a nuclear reactor or an atom smasher.  Even if you dissolve gold in aqua regia, the gold atoms are still there, just combined with other atoms in some compound, and could be extracted from the compound by some chemical reaction.\n\nBeing "indestructible" is not really the quality for which gold is prized.  It's that it will still be bright and pure even after years, since it doesn't oxidize, unlike silver, which tarnishes.  Gold can be melted down and recast any number of times, a quality known as "fungibility".
114246
OVERSIMPLIFIED ANSWER\n\nActually, the periodic table was a stunning predictor of properties of elements. When it was first formulated, many of the elements we know of today had not been discovered, and so it contained many blank spots. Interestingly enough, it turns out that the groupings predicted properties of elements in groups. For instance, you could be reasonably certain that if 12 new halogens are found in the future, they will all have similar properties to the halogens that are grouped together today.\n\nHow do we know this? How were the elements grouped by properties before we knew what those properties were? Simply put, the periodic table is organized like this\n\nRight to left: number of electrons in the outermost orbital\n\nTop to bottom: atomic weight\n\nThis is oversimplified, but it works here. Electron configuration in the outer orbital is what determines an element's reactivity, the bulk of its chemical properties. Since there are 8 rows from left to right in the table, elements read from top to bottom all have the same number of electrons in their outer orbitals, so they all have similar properties.\n\nWhat's important to remember is that much of the periodic table was organized in its modern state BEFORE we knew this. Pretty nifty.
223202
goto http://www.webelements.com/ or better stillhttp://www.schoolscience.co.uk/periodictable.html run over the element with your mouse it tells you what it is
699921
It will always have the same number of protons per atom... it protons are added or taken away, it won't be gold anymore.
699126
There are 118 elements on the Periodic Table.
599311
I plan on keeping mine in for the rest of my life with no rusting.  I would think that in a few million years if they find even my bones decayed away, that titanium will still be sittin' there shining nice and pretty.
831776
A few are:\nMg, Zn, Al, Fe, and Cu.  They will dissolve at different rates according to the activity series of the metals.
636669
suppose u have 100gm of a radioactive material with half life as 5 yrs. after 5 yrs the amount will be 50gms as half of it has decayed in 5 yrs.In next 5 yrs it will reduce to 25 gms and so on . As the radioactive material decays to half of its initial amount so it is called half life of that material.
298303
Tip:  The atomic number is always the element's number of protons.
851600
Theoretically, it will just keep halving for all of time, but this is just statistics. When there's too few atoms of the radioactive element, for statistics to apply, the half-life is no longer valid.\nFor practical uses, it is assumed that the element is roughly gone after 10 half-lives, so after 10-12 hours the effect should be negligible
949928
I think this is an interesting question.  Surprisingly, I think the answer is yes for some properties.  I don't have data in front of me (my books are at the office), but I'll bet that if you compare densities of homologous compounds in a group, you'd find that the density increases along with the density of the main constituent atoms.  I'll also bet that there are spectroscopic properties that are retained -- those relating to the inner shells.  In addition, there are tests used by mineralogists to detect the presence of common constituent metals in different minerals; a common example is the sodium "D" emission that causes a yellow flame in a fire when sodium is present regardless of the counterion.  In inorganic chemistry I seem to remember endless graphs of periodic properties that we used as a mnemonic device, but that was too many years ago to remember them.\n\nIf I wanted to look into it on the internet, I'd do a search on "periodic properties of the elements."  Also, geochemists are wonderful for collecting data and putting together tables of such things, and undergraduate inorganic textbooks may be helpful for finding some as well.