The Mystery of

Half- Life and Rate

of Decay
BY CANSU TRKAY
10-N

The truth is out there...

Before we start....

At the end of this presentation, you will be a

genious about these fallowing issues (at least
I hope so ) :
Conservation of Nucleon Number
Radioactive (a type of exponentional) Decay
Law and its Proof
Concept of Half- life
How to solve half-life problems

Conservation of....
All three types of radioactive decays
(Alfa, beta and gamma) hold classical
conservation laws.
Energy, linear momentum, angular
momentum, electric charge are all
conserved

Conservation of...
The law of conservation of nucleon
number states that the total number of
nucleons (A) remains constant in any
process, although one particle can
change into another ( protons into
neutrons or vica versa). This is accepted
to be true for all the three radioactive
decays.

Radioactive
and its

Decay Law
Proof

Radioactive decay is the spontaneous

release of energy in the form of
radioactive particles or waves.
It results in a decrease over time of the
original amount of the radioactive
material.

Radioactive Decay Law

and its Proof
Any radioactive isotope consists of a vast
number of radioactive nuclei.
Nuclei does not decay all at once.
Decay over a period of time.
We can not predict when it will decay, its
a random process but...

Radioactive Decay Law

and its Proof
... We can determine, based on
probability, approximately how many
nuclei in a sample will decay over a given
time period, by asuming that each
nucleus has the same probability of
decaying in each second it exists.

Exponentional Decay
A quantity is said to be subject to
exponentional decay if it decreases at a
rate proportional to its value.

Exponentional Decay
Symbolically, this can be expressed as
the fallowing differential equation where
N is the quantity and is a positive
number called the decay constant:
N = - N
t

Relating it to radioactive
decay law:
The number of decays are represented
by N
The short time interval that N occurs is
represented by t
N is the number of nuclei present
is the decay constant

10

Relating it to radioactive
decay law:
Here comes our first equation AGAIN, try
to look it with the new perspective:
N = - N
t

11

What was that?!!!

In the previous equation you have seen a
symbol like:
is a constant of proportionality, called the
decay constant.
It differs according to the isotope it is in.
The greater is, the greater the rate of decay
This means that the greater is, the more
radioactive the isotope is said to be.
12

Still confused about the

equation...
Dont worry! If you are still confused about
why this equation is like this, here is some
of the important points....

Confused Minds...
With each decay that occurs (N) in a
short time period (t),a decrease in the
number N of the nuclei present is
observed.
So; the minus sign indicates that N is
decreasing.

14

Got it!!!!
Now, here is our little old equation:

N = - N
POF!!!
t

Now it has become the radioactive decay law!

(yehu)

What was that???

N0 is the number of nuclei present at time
t=0
The symbol e is the natural expoentional (as
we saw in the topic logarithm)

16

So what?
Thus, the number of parent nuclei in a
sample decreases exponentionally in
time
If reaction is first order with respect to
[N], integration with respect to time, t,
gives this equation.
17

As seen in the figure

below
Please just
focus on how it
decays
exponetionally.
Half-life will be
discussed
soon

HALF-LIFE
The amount of time required for one-half
or 50% of the radioactive atoms to
undergo a radioactive decay.
Every radioactive element has a specific
half-life associated with it.
Is a spontaneous process.

HALF-LIFE

Ooops!!!
Remember the first few slides? We
stated that we can not predict when
particular atom of an element will decay.
However half-life is defined for the time
at which 50% of the atoms have
decayed. Why cant we make a ratio and
predict when all will decay???

Answer
The concept of half-life relies on a lot of
radioactive atoms being present. As an example,
imagine you could see inside a bag of popcorn as
you heat it inside your microwave oven. While
you could not predict when (or if) a particular
kernel would "pop," you would observe that after
2-3 minutes, all the kernels that were going to
pop had in fact done so. In a similar way, we
know that, when dealing with a lot of radioactive
atoms, we can accurately predict when one-half
of them have decayed, even if we do not know
the exact time that a particular atom will do so.

HALF-LIFE
Range fractions of a second to billions of
years.
Is a measure of how stable the nuclei is.
No operation or process of any kind (i.e.,
chemical or physical) has ever been
shown to change the rate at which a
radionuclide decays.

How to calculate halflife?

The half life of first order reaction is a
constant, independent of the initial
concentration.
The decay constant and half-life has the
relationship :
hl = ln(2) /
24

Calculations for half-life

As an example, Technetium-99 has a
half-life of 6 hours.This means that, if
there is 100 grams of Technetium is
present initially, after six hours, only 50
grams of it would be left.After another 6
hours, 25 grams, one quarter of the initial
amount will be left. And that goes on like
this.
25

Bye!

26

Calculating Half-Life
R (original amount)
n (number of half-lifes)

R . (1/2)

Try it!!!
Now lets try to solve a half-life calculation
problem
64 grams of Serenium-87, is left 4 grams
after 20 days by radioactive decay. How
long is its half life?

Solution
Initially, Sr is 64 grams, and after 20
days, it becomes 4 grams.The arrows
represent the half-life.
64 g 1/2
64 . 1/2
64 . .
It goes like this till it reaches 4 grams, in 20
days.
30

Solution
We have to find after how many
multiplications by does 64 becomes 4.
We can simply state that,

64 . (1/2)

Where n is the number of half lifes it has

experienced.

Solution
64 . (1/2)n = 4
26-n = 22
n = 4 half-lifes
And as we are given the information that this
process happened in 20 days ;
4 half-lifes = 20 days
1 half life = 5 days
Tataa!!! We have found it really easily!

Questions
Explain the reason for why cant we predict
when/if a nucleus of a radioactive isotope with
a known- half life would decay?
Define half-life briefly.

Questions
Explain the law of conservation of
nucleon number.
Does nuclei decay all at once/ how does
it decay?
A quantity is said to be subject to
exponentional decay if?

THE END!!!
Resources:
http://cathylaw.com/images/halflifebar.jpg
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/Academics/Astr221/HW/H
W3/noft.gif
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/vrchemistry/Conservation/
page35.htm
www.gcse.com/ radio/halflife3.htm
www.nucmed.buffalo.edu/.../ sld003.htm
http://www.iem-inc.com/prhlfr.html
http://www.math.duke.edu/education/ccp/materials/d
iffcalc/raddec/raddec1.html
http://www.mrgale.com/onlhlp/nucpart/halflife.htm