In message , Richard Tobin
writes:
In article ,
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

(Remember, of course, that all elements are radioactive, and have a half
life. It's just that most have such long half lives that we don't
normally _consider_ them radioactive.)

Really? Do you have a reference for that?

That is, for there being no completely stable isotopes?

-- Richard

Hmm, I thought I had, but on further investigation, it seems I'm
probably wrong - though I would argue that "stable" is not the same as
"has never been seen to decay".

A couple of interesting sites - where I find iron has either 8 or 28
isotopes, 4 declared "stable" and the 4 having half-lives ranging from
8.2h to 3x10^5 yrs - a

http://www.periodictable.com/
(http://www.periodictable.com/Elements/026/data.html)

and

http://www.rsc.org/chemsoc/visualele...rtable_fla.htm
(http://www.rsc.org/chemsoc/visualele...iron_data.html)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
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