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I apologize if this is an obvious question, but I can't find the answer anywhere. In this page: http://ie.lbl.gov/education/parent/U_iso.htm are listed the isotopes of Uranium. Some of them, for example U238 are listed many times, with "m1" or "m2" attached to the mass number. What does this mean?

carllacan
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1 Answers1

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These "metastable states" are excited states of the nucleus that have a non-trivial lifetime (most nuclear excited states decay very quickly).

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dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
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