Chapter 1: Brief Introduction to Radioactivity

Natural radioactivity is a spontaneous and self-disruptive activity exhibited by a number of heavy elements occurring in nature. The word spontaneous means by its own or by shear out of nature of the element and self-disruptive means that the element disintegrates itself i.e. no external provocation influences the emission. Radioactivity is, therefore, the property by virtue of which a heavy element disintegrates itself without being forced by any external agent to do so.