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What is radiation?
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<PRE>What properties does a radioactive material have over say iron?</PRE>
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Looseheads description of half-life in the question just above, contains the answer to your question as well. Iron for example (Fe chemically) contains a determined number of protons and neutrons... the exact number of these subatomic particles contained in the neucleus determines the identity of the iron, e.g., iron-56 for iron samples containing 26 protons and 36 neutrons. These can, if unstable, decay by ejecting some of the subatomic particles. This causes the iron to become something else over a period of time called (ala Loosehead) half-life. Well, guess what, the half life of iron is fairly low... around 1.5 million years, whereas the half-life of uranium-238 (used for weapons) is 4.5 billion years. So... long way of saying iron has lost most of its radioactivity and plutonium has not...
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