Half life

Question	Answer
What will an unstable nuclei do to become stable?	Spontaneously emit radiation
What rates do isotopes decay at?	Different rates
Which isotopes have higher activities?	Those which decay more often and more of the N nuclei which decay per second
What happens to the decay rate if we have a larger sample of the same substance?	There are more measurable decays per second due to the larger number of unstable nuclei
What is their a proportionality between in terms of decay?	Activity and number of decays (or change in number of unstable nuclei)
what is the decay constant?	The proportionality of an individual nuclei decaying per second
What are the units of decay constant?	S^-1
On average what is the time taken for half of the nuclei in a sample to randomly decay?	Constant
What is the time taken independent of?	The initial number
What does the theory of the exponential nature of decay indicate?	That a sample will never fully decay
In practice what will actually happen?	The sample will eventually decay completely and its count rate will drop below the background count

Resource summary

	Created by sammy414 over 10 years ago