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Robert Call
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Radioactivity - Example 3

In nuclear physics, radioactivity is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus of an isotope undergoes radioactive decay, resulting in either its transformation into a different isotope of the same element (isotope decay) or in the emission of particles such as alpha particles, beta particles, neutrons, or gamma rays. A material containing such unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Certain highly excited short-lived nuclear states can decay through neutron emission, or more rarely, proton emission. Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel (1852–1908), while working with phosphorescent materials. These materials glow in the dark after exposure to light, and he suspected that the glow produced in cathode ray tubes by X-rays might be associated with phosphorescence. He wrapped a photographic plate in black paper and placed various phosphorescent salts on it. All results were negative until he used uranium salts. The uranium salts caused a blackening of the plate. He concluded that the blackening of the plate had been caused by the emission of rays from the uranium salt, and that the uranium salt had been spontaneously emitting these rays for an indefinite period.

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Video Transcript

welcome to our third example video looking at radioactive decay. In this video, we're going to consider carbon 14, and we're going to find out that it has a half life of 5000, 730 years, which means every 5730 years carbon 14 is going to lose half of the mass that it started with or it will have half the mass that it started with. Remember, this happens slowly over time, not all at once. Let's ask ourselves, though, So if we have 10,000 years, we go through 10,000 years. What percentage of our original sample is left over? We can go ahead and say that we have 100 g, though we really don't need to put an amount here in order to find a percentage, we can then say end of tea is equal to and not which is 0.1 kg. We'll apply it by. We can use our simpler formula here and put in one half good. I'm, uh, to the negative 10,000 years divided by 5730. Now that we have this, what we can then do is calculate what is gonna happen here. So, typing in these numbers, we have 0.1 times one half to the negative. 10,000, divided by 5730. This gives us a result of 0.2 98 kilograms or, in other words, 29.8 g. So we have about 30% 30% of our sample remaining. So not bad after 10,000 years to still have 30% left. But definitely, if we were to go to say 100,000 years, it would be significantly less than 30%.

RC
Robert Call
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Physics 103

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