Video Transcript
What type of particle is a gamma
ray the same as?
Okay, so thinking about gamma rays,
we know that these are emitted in radioactive emission events. The symbol for a gamma ray is the
Greek letter 𝛾. And sometimes, we’ll see these rays
represented by a squiggly line that looks something like this. And this representation can remind
us that a gamma ray is electromagnetic radiation. That is, in some respects, it
behaves like a wave. But in this question, we’re asked
specifically what type of particle a gamma ray is the same as. We can start off by realizing what
type of particles a gamma ray is not. A gamma ray, as electromagnetic
radiation, has no mass, and it also has no electric charge. That means a gamma ray can’t be any
particle that has mass or charge. It can’t be a proton. It can’t be a neutron. It can’t be an electron and so
on.
But then, what particle is there
that’s both massless and chargeless? We can think back to the identity
of a gamma ray as electromagnetic radiation. The name for a packet or a single
section of electromagnetic radiation is photon. A photon is considered to be a
particle, and yet it satisfies the condition of having no mass and no charge. Therefore, it’s a match for a gamma
ray. And therefore, this is our
answer. A photon is the particle that a
gamma ray is the same as.
