The half-life of a radioactive substance is 10 minutes. A sample of the radioactive substance contains 2000 nuclei.How many radioactive nuclei were in the sample half an hour earlier?
Question
The half-life of a radioactive substance is 10 minutes. A sample of the radioactive substance contains 2000 nuclei.How many radioactive nuclei were in the sample half an hour earlier?
Solution
To solve this problem, we need to understand the concept of half-life. The half-life of a substance is the time it takes for half of the substance to decay. In this case, the half-life of the radioactive substance is 10 minutes.
Half an hour is 30 minutes, which is three half-lives of the substance (30 minutes / 10 minutes per half-life = 3 half-lives).
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After the first half-life (10 minutes), the number of radioactive nuclei would have doubled from the current amount. So, after 10 minutes, there would have been 2000 * 2 = 4000 nuclei.
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After the second half-life (20 minutes), the number of radioactive nuclei would have doubled again. So, after 20 minutes, there would have been 4000 * 2 = 8000 nuclei.
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After the third half-life (30 minutes), the number of radioactive nuclei would have doubled yet again. So, half an hour earlier, there would have been 8000 * 2 = 16000 nuclei.
So, half an hour earlier, the sample would have contained 16000 radioactive nuclei.
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