Apark ranger wants to shoot a monkey hanging from a branch of a tree with a tranquilizing dart. the ranger aims directly at the monkey, not realizing that the dart will follow a parabolic path and thus will fall below the monkey. the monkey, however, sees the dart leave the gun and lets go of the branch to avoid being hit. will the monkey be hit anyway? does the velocity of the dart affect your answer, assuming that it is great enough to travel the horizontal distance to the tree before hitting the ground?

answer: the correct answer is 1.

explanation: there are various process in which a radioactive nuclei decays:

1) alpha decay: in this process, a heavier nuclei decays into lighter nuclei by releasing alpha particle. the mass number is reduced by 4 units.

2) electron capture: in this decay process, a parent nuclei absorbs an electron and gets converted into a neutron. simply, a proton and an electron combines together to form a neutron. mass number does not change in this process.

3) gamma ray emission: it is a decay process in which an unstable nuclei gives excess energy by a spontaneous electromagnetic process. this decay releases . this process does not change the mass number.

4) positron emission: it is a type of decay process, in which a proton gets converted to neutron and an electron neutrino. this is also known as -decay. in this the mass number remains same.

from the above information, we see that only alpha-decay is producing a change in the mass number of the nucleus.