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The exponential laws which govern the decay and growth of radioactive substances were first formulated by Rutherford and Soddy in 1902 (R52) in order to explain their experiments on the thorium series of radioactive substances. Useful mathematical generalizations were made in 1910 by Bateman (B20). The more general forms of the decay and growth equations are therefore often referred to as "the Bateman equations." For three decades the applicability of the equations governing series decay was confined to the uranium, actinium, and thorium series of naturally occurring radioactive substances. With the discovery of nuclear fission a vast number of cases of radioactive-series decay appeared among the fission products. The behavior of all these can be understood with the help of the original Bateman equations.

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