What the ultimate Natural Units of material are?

Decay energy

Since amounts of energy accompanying nuclear decays and nuclear reactions are huge, Einstein's theory suggesting mass being equivalent to energy (E = m c2) is useful and applicable.

The energy involved in decay is often represented by Q. The energy released is at the expense of mass. Thus, the total mass of the products is less than the total mass of the reactants.

  Q = Total mass
of reactants
 - Total mass
of products
The energy of decay is mostly carried carried by the light particles, alpha, beta or gamma, but a little bit is carried by the daughter nucleus due to recoil.

E-mail: cchieh@uwaterloo.ca