EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION
the half life of a radio substance is 1,200years and the initial amount of the substance is 300 grams.What amount of substance remains after 1000 years ?
Answers
Answer:
(1), where
A
(
t
)
- the amount left after t years;
A
0
- the initial quantity of the substance that will undergo decay;
t
1/2
- the half-life of the decaying quantity.
So, if a problem asks you to calculate an element's half-life, it must provide information about the initial mass, the quantity left after radioactive decay, and the time it took that sample to reach its post-decay value.
Let's say you have a radioactive isotope that undergoes radioactive decay. It started from a mass of 67.0 g and it took 98 years for it to reach 0.01 g. Here's how you would determine its half-life:
Starting from (1), we know that
0.01
=
67.0
⋅
(
1
2
)
98.0
t
1/2
→
0.01
67.0
=
0.000149
=
(
1
2
)
98.0
t
1/2
98.0
t
1/2
=
log
0.5
(
0.000149
)
=
12.7
Therefore, its half-life is
t
1/2
=
98.0
12.7
=
7.72
years
.
So, the initial mass gets halved every 7.72 years.
Sometimes, if the numbers allow it, you can work backwards to determine an element's half-life. Let's say you started with 100 g and ended up with 25 g after 1,000 years.
In this case, since 25 represents 1/4th of 100, two hal-life cycles must have passed in 1,000 years, since
100.0
2
=
50.0
g
after the first
t
1/2
,
50.0
2
=
25.0
g
after another
t
1/2
.
So,
2
⋅
t
1/2
=
1000
→
t
1/2
=
1000
2
=
500
years
.
Answer:
please mention question properly what is radio substance