Definition:Radioactive Decay/Half-Life
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Definition
The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time it takes for exactly half of an arbitrary quantity of that isotope to undergo radioactive decay.
Thus it is the time it takes for exactly half of an arbitrary quantity of that isotope to remain.
Examples
This page lists isotopes of some radioactive elements and their half-lives.
Rubidium-$87$ | $48.8 \times 10^9$ years | ||||||||
Uranium-$238$ | $4.5 \times 10^9$ years | ||||||||
Potassium-$40$ | $1.251 \times 10^9$ years | ||||||||
Carbon-$14$ | $5 \,730 \pm 40$ years |
Sources
- 1972: George F. Simmons: Differential Equations ... (previous) ... (next): $1$: The Nature of Differential Equations: $\S 4$: Growth, Decay and Chemical Reactions
- 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): half-life