half-life

     

The half-life of a quantity whose value ecreases with time is the interval required for the quantity to decay to half of its initial value. The concept originated in the study of radioactive decay which is subject to exponential decay but applies to all phenomena including those which are described by non-exponential decays.

Trivia about half-life

  • The time it takes for 50% of the atoms to decay in a radioactive substance is called this
  • Term for the time it takes a radioactive substance to decay to 50% of its original quantity
  • This measure is used for radioactive decay because the time for all atoms to break down is unknowable
  • Contrary to popular belief, the 28-year length of this for strontium 90 is not shared by a Twinkie
  • For the radioactive element Thorium, it's about 14 billion years
  • It's defined as the time required for 50% of the atoms of a radioactive substance to decay into another substance
  • For the radioactive isotope Actinium-227, it's 21.8 years
  • For thorium-234 it's about 25 days; for thorium-232, about 14 billion years
  • The time it takes for 50% of a given amount of a radioactive element to decay
  • (Jon of the Clue Crew explains the diagrams on the monitor.) For 5 out of 10 carbon-11 atoms to decay into boron-11, it takes 20 minutes, which is this measure for the carbon-11 isotope

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