A 5 g sample of a radioactive element takes 102 days to reduce into 3 g. Calculate the half-life and identify the element.
A 5 g sample of a radioactive element takes 102 days to reduce into 3 g. Calculate the half-life and identify the element.
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Transcribed Image Text:A 5 g sample of a radioactive element takes 102 days to reduce into 3 g. Calculate the
half-life and identify the element.
Expert Solution

Concept and Principle:
- Radioactive decay takes place when an unstable nucleus becomes stable. The instability arises due to a mismatch between the number of neutrons and protons. Only a few configurations of neutrons and protons are stable.
- This decay will be exponential in nature and is given by,
Here N0 is the original number of radioactive nuclei present, t is the time, and t1/2 is the half-life of the radioactive sample. This is known as the exponential law of radioactive decay.
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