lead and plutonium

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From: yibi smith (yibsmith@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Sep 18 2002 - 17:11:06 PDT 

From: "yibi smith" <yibsmith@hotmail.com>
Subject: lead and plutonium
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 17:11:06 -0700
Message-ID: <F218dpdJM4fGjIKnWMN0000f756@hotmail.com>

One of my students had two good questions that I could not answer. They
are:
1.What is special about lead that makes it such a good radiation shield? Is
it just the size of the nucleus of the atom? Would gold be an equally good
choice if price were not an issue?
2.What is special about plutonium that makes it preferable to uranium in
some atomic bombs?
Any insights will be much appreciated.
Thanks. Yibi Smith, Dixon High School

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