SOLUTION: The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time it takes for a quantity of the isotope to be reduced to half its initial mass. Starting with 110 grams of a radioactive isotope,
Algebra ->
Human-and-algebraic-language
-> SOLUTION: The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time it takes for a quantity of the isotope to be reduced to half its initial mass. Starting with 110 grams of a radioactive isotope,
Log On
Question 1152137: The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time it takes for a quantity of the isotope to be reduced to half its initial mass. Starting with 110 grams of a radioactive isotope, how much will be left after 6 half-lives? Found 2 solutions by greenestamps, Theo:Answer by greenestamps(13200) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! the isotope starts off as weighing 110 grams.
one half life will reduce this to 55 grams.
that would be 110 * .5 ^ 1
two half lives will reduce this to 110 * .5 ^ 2 = 27.5 grams.
six half lives will reduce this to 110 * .5 ^ 6 = 1.71875 grams.
this can be seen graphically as shown below.
the biggest loss is early on.
as the number of grams gets smaller, than 50% of those becomes less of an absolute drop, but it's still 50%.
here's the graph.
