Ages

Introduction

Summary

The half-life of  a given isotope is the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample to decay. This animation  allows you to address, using three different isotopes,  notions like radioactive decay, carbon dating, half life constant…

Goals

• To illustrate how the decay of an unstable nucleus is a random process. 
• To define the half-life constant for three representative radioactive nucleus.
• To relate the Becquerel to the process of radioactive decay.
• To visualize the exponential decay law.

Features

Click on one of the three isotopes to select a half-life constant.
Click on [Play] to start the decay.

Tags

radioactive-decay becquerel plutonium carbon exponential random carbon-dating radioactivity half-life disintegration