College Physics:
College Physics:
11th Edition
ISBN: 9781305965515
Author: SERWAY, Raymond A.
Publisher: Brooks/Cole Pub Co
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Chapter 29, Problem 3CQ

(a)

To determine

The fraction of sample remaining after one half-life.

(b)

To determine

The fraction of sample remaining after two half-lives.

(c)

To determine

The fraction of sample remaining after three half-lives.

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What fraction of a radioactive sample remains after (a) one, (b) two, and (c) three half-lives have elapsed?
Radioactive substances follow a specific law of decay. Namely, if you have a sample of some radioactive isotope, the quantity left after a certain time, called the half-life and denoted T1/2, is one-half of what you had initially. If you wait a second half-life, then there will be half f what was left at the end of the first half-life. Since 1/2-1/2 = 1/4, you will have one-fourth of the original quantity left after two half-lives. You can continue with this procedure to find the fraction of the original sample that hasn't decayed after any number of half- lives. However, this would become quite cumbersome if you are interested in the quantity left after, say, 10 half-lives. In this case, the quantity you are looking for would be found by multiplying the original quantity by 10 factors or 1/2. To solve this problem, we use exponents. An exponent, a small number written above and to the right, tells you how many copies of a particular number are multiplied together. In our example,…
A radioactive source consists of 6.4 x 10^11 atoms of a nuclide of a half-life of 2 days. A second source consists of 8.0 x 10^10 atoms of another nuclide of half-life 3 days. After how many days will the number of radioactive atoms in the two sources are equal *

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