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Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,110 years.

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Does uranium 238 have the shortest half life?

No, uranium-238 has a long half-life of about 4.5 billion years. It is a naturally occurring isotope that is commonly found in nature. Shorter-lived isotopes, such as radon-222 or polonium-214, have much shorter half-lives.


How do you determine the half life of a radioactive substance that has changed through radioactive decay After 40 days the original substance left is is one sixteenth of the original amount?

To determine the half-life of the substance, you can use the fact that after one half-life, the substance will be reduced to half of its original amount. In this case, after 40 days, the substance is reduced to one sixteenth of its original amount, which represents 4 half-lives (since 1/2^4 = 1/16). Thus, each half-life of this substance is 10 days.


A sample of radioactive isotope has a halflife of 1 day how much of the original sample will be left at the end of the fourth day?

If a sample of radioactive material has a half-life of one week the original sample will have 50 percent of the original left at the end of the second week. The third week would be 25 percent of the sample. The fourth week would be 12.5 percent of the original sample.


What are the isotopes in use in nuclear power plants and what reaction takes place?

Uranium is used as the feed fuel in nuclear power plants. Natural uranium contains 0.7 percent U235 but this is increased to about 4 percent for light water moderated reactors. The bulk of uranium is U238 and this is not productive, though some of it turns to plutonium during operation and this gives further energy output. The reaction with U235 and Pu239 is called fission, whereby the nucleus splits into two parts and releases energy


What are ways you can turn uranium into energy that we can use?

Most uranium is U-238, with has a very long halflife. Bombard it with neutrons (fast breeder reactor) to make plutonium-239, which is a suitable fuel for a fission reactor. Lift it up high, and tie a rope to it. As it falls, have it drive a generator. Same scenario, only drop it into a black hole... get lots more energy.