Half-Life and Radioactive Decay

136 - Half-Life and Radioactive Decay

In this video Paul Andersen explains how a radioactive nuclei can decay by releasing an alpha, beta, or gamma particle. The exact moment of decay for each nuclei can not be determined but probability is useful in predicting the half-life. The half-life is the amount of time required for half of the radioactive nuclei to decays and depends on the decay constant. Several examples of decay and several half-lives are included.

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Music Attribution
Title: String Theory
Artist: Herman Jolly
http://sunsetvalley.bandcamp.com/trac...

All of the images are licensed under creative commons and public domain licensing:

en.wikibooks, KieranMaher at. English: Illustration of the Concept of Half-Life, June 5, 2006. Generated by Kieran Maher using Microsoft Excel. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil....
Rosenkrantz, Kurt. English: Decay of an Imaginary Radioactive Substance with a Half-Life of One Year., July 27, 2010. http://cafreetextbooks.ck12.org/scien... (page 433) If the above link no longer works, visit http://www.ck12.org and search for CK-12 Earth Science. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil....