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How long would it take a radioactive isotope to decay if it has a half life of 10 years?
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
It will take 8 days.
The half life is the time it takes half of an element to decay.
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoA half life of 10 years means that in ten years it will have only half the radiation.
Ten years later, it will have half of that half, etc.
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Isotope A has half-life of seconds and isotope B has a half-life of millions of years which isotope is more radioactive?
Isotope A
What is the longest radioactive halflife?
First, it isn't very accurate to talk about a radioactive "element"; you should talk about radioactive isotopes. Different isotopes of the same element can have very different behavior in this sense. For example, hydrogen-1 and hydrogen-2 are stable, while hydrogen-3 is not (half-life about 19 years).Individual atoms, in a radioactive isotope, will decay at a random moment. The half-life refers to how long it takes for half of the atoms in a given sample to decay (and convert to some other type of isotope).
Why is plutonium radioactive?
No it does not. There are various types (isotopes) of plutonium. Plutonium 238, the weapons grade material, has a half life of 88 years. Meaning after 88 years half of the material has transforms into another element through radioactive decay. Plutonium-240 has a half life of ~80 Million years. But eventually all types of plutonium will decay into other elements. All radioactive elements will eventually decay into non-radioactive atoms given enough time.
What is the half life of radioisotope?
Half life is the time taken for approximately half of the available nuclei in a sample of radioactive material to decay into something else. It's a characteristic of the isotope, for example, the half life of the isotope of iodine, I131 is 8.08 days. Half lives can vary from fractions of a second to thousands of years.
What does uranium become when it decays?
If we use uranium-238 as our starter isotope, what happens is that a nuclear decay event happens (in this case an alpha decay) and the U-238 transforms into a daughter isotope thorium (Th-234). The half-life of this transition is 4.5 billion years. Thorium-234 then undergoes a decay. And the process continues until a stable isotope is created as the last daughter of a decay chain. Note that there will be different half lives for the transition events, and the modes of decay will vary depending on what daughter is now the parent in the next decay event. Use the link below to see all the steps. The chart will show the whole chain including the half-life of isotope undergoing decay, the decay mode, and the daughter. Follow along using the keys and the process will reveal itself.
How are radioactive isotopes used to determine the absolute age of igneous rock.?
Answer : When the isotopes decay, scientists can find out how old the rock is depending on the radioactive isotope's half-life. Explanation: Radioactive isotopes are unstable and will decay. For example, when humans die carbon-14 decays. The isotopes will decay into a stable isotope over time. Scientists can tell how old the rock was from looking at the radioactive isotope's half-life, which tells them how long it would take for there to be half the radioactive isotope and half the stable isotope. At the next half-life there will be 25% of the radioactive isotope and 75% of the stable isotope. At the next half life there will be 12.5% radioactive and 87.5% stable. Example: Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope with a half life of 5,730 years. How old would carbon-14 be when there is 75% carbon-14 in the rock? 75% is half of the time before the half-life, so it would be 2,365 years. Hope this helps. Half life helps scientists find how much the isotope has decayed and the age of the rock.
How are radioactive isotopes used determine the absolute age of igneous rock?
Answer : When the isotopes decay, scientists can find out how old the rock is depending on the radioactive isotope's half-life. Explanation: Radioactive isotopes are unstable and will decay. For example, when humans die carbon-14 decays. The isotopes will decay into a stable isotope over time. Scientists can tell how old the rock was from looking at the radioactive isotope's half-life, which tells them how long it would take for there to be half the radioactive isotope and half the stable isotope. At the next half-life there will be 25% of the radioactive isotope and 75% of the stable isotope. At the next half life there will be 12.5% radioactive and 87.5% stable. Example: Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope with a half life of 5,730 years. How old would carbon-14 be when there is 75% carbon-14 in the rock? 75% is half of the time before the half-life, so it would be 2,365 years. Hope this helps. Half life helps scientists find how much the isotope has decayed and the age of the rock.
How many years will it take for 10g of radioactive uranium to decay into 5g of radioactive uranium?
Depending on the isotope: - for 235U: 7,038.108 years - for 238U: 4,468.109 years etc.
What is the similarity of radioactive isotope and radioactive dating?
Radioactive isotopes are used for radioactive dating. For example, you would use radioactive isotope Carbon-14 to date anything under 70,000 years that was once living. Radioactive isotopes decay from their parent isotope to daughter isotope at a constant rate (under any circumstances). The rate at which a parent isotope decays to its daughter isotope is considered one half life. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5730 years and its daughter isotope is Nitrogen-14. In order to determine how old something is you have to find out how much of the parent isotope is present in relation to the daughter.
What is the decay element of uranium?
It is not yet discovered since all of the uranium isotopes are having half life for several millions of years. We would be able to find it after atleast 700 millions of years.
A specimen is found to have 3 atoms of a radioactive isotope for every 9 atoms of the stable decay product The radioactive material has a half-life of 2500 years how old is the specimen?
5000 years old
What is the half-life of the radioactive isotope 6-C-14 element carbon?
The half-life of 6C14 is 5730 years, by Beta- decay.
What is the half life of the radioactive isotope?
The half life is the period of time it takes radioactive decay to transmute one half of the isotope present at the start of the period to a different isotope, usually an isotope of a different element. This period of time is different for different isotopes, with known isotope half lives ranging from femtoseconds to many billions of years.
The half-life of an element is important for?
The half-life of an isotope is how long it takes for half of the atoms in a mass to undergo radioactive decay. Say you have 40g of an elements isotope with a half-life of one year. After 1 year, there would be 20g of that isotope left, and 20g of a different isotope/element. After 2 years, there would be 10g, and so on...
Isotope A has half-life of seconds and isotope B has a half-life of millions of years which isotope is more radioactive?
Isotope A
What term used to describe rate of radioactive isotopes?
Half-life (in units of time).Half-Life is the rate of radioactive decay, measured in time. The half life gives the time it take for half of the radioactive atoms in a system to decay. Fore example, if you have 10 grams of carbon-14, it will take 5730 years for half of it to decay, giving you 5 grams. In another 5730 years, you'll have 2.5 grams left, etc...Isotopes decay at an exponential rate. A half-life is the time that half of the population of an isotope will decay. The measure is a statistical probability and is more accurate when a large population is observed. The term half-life is applied to describe a property of a given isotope (i.e. the half-life of Carbon 14 is 5730).half life
Is U-238 a short lived radioactive isotope?
No, it has a half-life* of around 4.468 billion years *A Half-life is the time it takes for the amount of substance undergoing decay to half.
