🔖 Topics

  • Nuclear half life

🎯 Objectives

  • Calculate the fraction of remaining nuclei due to nuclear decay

📋 Sequence

  • 1 becquerel (Bq) is the unit of one decay per second
  • We could, theoretically, use \(R(t) = R_o e^{-t/\tau}\) to characterize nuclear decay
  • We instead use half life \(N(t) = N_o (1/2)^{t/T_{1/2}}\)

🖥️ Animations, Simulations, Activities

N/A

📝 Practice Problems

  1. Manganese-54 has a half-life of 312 days. What fraction of nuclei in a sample of Mn-54 decay during a period of 936 days?

✅ Partial Solutions

  1. 7/8 of them decay, 1/8 remains

📘 Connected Resources

  • Giambattista, Alan, et al. College Physics With an Integrated Approach to Forces and Kinematics. 5th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2020.