Abstract
UNTIL a few years ago radioactive isotopes were a curiosity. Most of t he known species of atoms were stable, and only a few had the strange property of spontaneous disintegration known as radioactivity. Today these unstable species are no longer the exception: less than 300 stable isotopes are known, while more than 700 radioactive species have been observed. At least 500 of the latter are well established as to mass number. The list is expanding so rapidly that any chart or list of isotopes is somewhat out of date before it is printed. The rapidity of this development is demonstrated by a few statistics. Artificial radioactivity was first observed in 1934. A table (Livingood, J. J., and Seaborg, G. T., Rev. Mod. Phys. , 12, 30 [1940]) in 1940 listed 332 new activities produced by artificial means. In 1944 a list (Seaborg, G. T., Rev. Mod. Phys. , 16, 1 [1944]) included ...
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