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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?

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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).

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

This problem has been solved

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