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If An isotope of an element has a half life of ten years How long would it take for this isotope to decay to about onesixteen of its original amount?
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
1/16th = (1/2) x (1/2) x (1/2) x (1/2) = (1/2)4 = four half-lives = 40 years.
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
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How is radiometric dating used to tell the age of a fossil?
The radiometric dating method for organic matter that most people know about is carbon dating, and this method is limited to things less than about 60,000 years old. It will not do for a fossil, because the carbon-14 would be nearly all gone. In fact, for practical purposes, it would be all gone. And so would many or all of the materials that were in the animal or plant that left the fossil. At the age given, the materials originally in a fossil are likely to have been replaced with other materials, so there would be likely to be very original material left to analyze. Also bear in mind that not all fossils are remains of living matter, for example, a remnant of a hole dug by an insect or worm could be a fossil. Dating such old fossils can be done by dating the stone matrix in which they are found. This is done by comparing amounts of specific radioactive materials with amounts of other materials into which they decay. For example, potassium-40 decays into argon-40. With luck, meaning for example that the fossil has not been heated to much, we can compare the amounts of these substances in the rock to determine how long ago it became rock. That will tell us its age, give or take a twenty million years or so. There are many similar combinations of isotopes that can be used, and the people doing the analysis would know which to use when they see what kind of rock is involved.
Do Elements become radioactive when the strong nuclear force overcomes the repulsive electrostatic force?
No. Radioactive elements are normally a result of the atom actually being an isotope of that element. An isotope is an atom of an element that has a different amount of neutrons than the norm. For example, the normal amount of neutrons in a Carbon atom is six, but Carbon-14 has eight, and Carbon-16 has ten. These isotopes are normally radioactive.
When an atom undergoes radioactive decay when does it become a completely different element?
An atom of a given isotope will undergo radioactive decay whenever it feels like it. No joke. The nucleus of a radioactive isotope is unstable. Always. But that atom has no predictable moment of instability leading immediately to the decay event. We use something called a half life to estimate how long it will take for half a given quantity of an isotope to undergo radioactive decay until half the original amount is left, but this is a statistically calculated period. No one knows how long it will take a given atom of a radioactive isotope to decay, except that those with very short half lives will pretty much disappear relatively quickly.
After 36.9 years a sample of hydrogen contains one-eighth the amount it contained originally what is the half-life of the isotope?
The half-life of the isotope is 12.3.
Amount of neutrons and electrons in fluorine?
9 protons, 9 electrons and 10 neutrons in F-19 isotope.
Is it true that atoms of the same element have the same amount of neutrons?
If the chemical element has isotopes the number of neutrons is different for each isotope.
What is it called when it takes an element half the amount of time for a radioactive isotope to decay?
Half-life
Can you find out the number of electrons by adding protons and neutrons?
To find out the number of electrons in an element you must add the protons and neutrons and subtract that number with the atomic mass, this will determine the amount of electrons because the unknown element could be an isotope and have more than the normal amount of electrons of the non isotope element.
What does the chemistry term abundance mean. Please answer in small words?
The amount of an isotope of an element that exists in nature, usually expressed as a percentage of the total amount of all isotopes of the element.
How is radiometric dating used to tell the age of a fossil?
The radiometric dating method for organic matter that most people know about is carbon dating, and this method is limited to things less than about 60,000 years old. It will not do for a fossil, because the carbon-14 would be nearly all gone. In fact, for practical purposes, it would be all gone. And so would many or all of the materials that were in the animal or plant that left the fossil. At the age given, the materials originally in a fossil are likely to have been replaced with other materials, so there would be likely to be very original material left to analyze. Also bear in mind that not all fossils are remains of living matter, for example, a remnant of a hole dug by an insect or worm could be a fossil. Dating such old fossils can be done by dating the stone matrix in which they are found. This is done by comparing amounts of specific radioactive materials with amounts of other materials into which they decay. For example, potassium-40 decays into argon-40. With luck, meaning for example that the fossil has not been heated to much, we can compare the amounts of these substances in the rock to determine how long ago it became rock. That will tell us its age, give or take a twenty million years or so. There are many similar combinations of isotopes that can be used, and the people doing the analysis would know which to use when they see what kind of rock is involved.
If a radioactive element half life is 500000 years given 20 grams of the element how much is left after 4 half lives?
Just divide the original amount by 2, 4 times: 10; 5; 2.5; 1.25. The final number is the answer.
How much time is needed for half the amount of the sample of an element to decay?
The half-life has a specific value for each isotope.
What are the different types of dating?
By far the most common is radioactive dating which involves checking the amount of a given radioactive isotope in a given sample is left over (and calculating from the half-life [the time it takes for a radioactive element/isotope to decay to half the original amount]). Another one would likely be tree-ring dating which only determines the age of trees by how many rings it has.
what are different types of dates?
By far the most common is radioactive dating which involves checking the amount of a given radioactive isotope in a given sample is left over (and calculating from the half-life [the time it takes for a radioactive element/isotope to decay to half the original amount]). Another one would likely be tree-ring dating which only determines the age of trees by how many rings it has.
How much of a radio active parent isotope remains after one half life has pass?
Half the original amount.
Is a period of an element the amount of time it takes for half of a radioactive isotope to decay?
False- the period is the horizontal row the element is in
How is radioactive decay used to determine the absolute age a rocks?
The basic idea is to measure the amount of the radioactive isotope, and of one or more of its decay products. The older the rock, the larger the percentage of the original isotope that decayed - so the ratio between the original isotope and the decay product changes over time.
