Alpha decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (two protons and two neutrons) and thereby transforms (or 'decays') into an atom with a mass number 4 less and atomic number 2 less. For example:

238
92U → 234
90Th + 4
2He

which can also be written as:

238
U → 234
Th + α,

since an alpha particle is the same as a helium-4 nucleus, which has mass number 4 and atomic number 2. It also has a charge +2, but the charge is usually not written in nuclear equations, which describe nuclear reactions without considering the electrons. This convention is not meant to imply that the nuclei necessarily occur in neutral atoms.

Alpha decay is by far the most common form of cluster decay where the parent atom ejects a defined daughter collection of nucleons, leaving another defined product behind (in nuclear fission, a number of different pairs of daughters of approximately equal size are formed). Alpha decay is the most likely cluster decay because of the combined extremely high binding energy and relatively small mass of the helium-4 product nucleus (the alpha particle).

Alpha Condé (born 4 March 1938) is a Guinean politician who has been President of Guinea since December 2010. He spent decades in opposition to a succession of regimes in Guinea, unsuccessfully running against President Lansana Conté in the 1993 and 1998 presidential elections and leading the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG), an opposition party. Standing again in the 2010 presidential election, Condé was elected as President of Guinea in a second round of voting, according to official results.

Condé was born on 4 March 1938 in Boké in western Guinea to Mandinka parents from Baro village, Kouroussa Prefecture, upper Guinea. Alpha is married to Djene Kaba Condé. He has one son by the name of Alpha Mohammed Condé and one niece by the name of Aicha Diallo who is currently studying in the United States.

Alpha Condé, who is an ethnic Mandinka, left for France at the age of 15. He was active in parallel within the National Union of Higher Education (SNESUP) and combined the functions of charge within the Association of Guinean students in France (AEGF), and within the Federation of Black African Students in France (FEANF), in which he was the Executive Coordinator of African National Groups (NG) from 1967 to 1975, overseeing the activities of the Directorate of FEANF.

Jenny Alpha (22 April 1910 – 8 September 2010) was a Martinique-born French actress and singer, who appeared in more than a hundred theatre productions and movies.

Born in Fort-de-France, Martinique in 1910, Alpha moved to Paris in 1929 to pursue a career in teaching but became sidetracked due to her passion for theatre. As well as appearing in theatre, she displayed a variety of talent and became a successful singer, appearing alongside the likes of Duke Ellington and Joséphine Baker.

During the war she played an active role in the French Resistance before meeting her husband Noël Villard, a prominent French poet. Late in life, in 2005, she appeared in the film Monsieur Étienne, and in 2008 recorded a final album, La sérénade du muguet.

On 1 January 2009 she was granted the title of Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by the French government, and in 2010 Alpha celebrated her 100th birthday. She died on 8 September 2010 in Paris, France.