Half-Life
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I believe that, in laymans terms, every time an element passes its half-life, it's level of radioactivity is halved.
There'll be people who can describe it in more technical detail than me though.
EDIT: So, let's say something starts out with a radioactivity level of x, and has a half life of a year.
After a year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/2.
After another year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/4.
After another year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/8.
etc.
So nothing really ever loses all it's radioactivity, too. It's more a matter of waiting until it's radioactivity is at a safe level.
(This is all just what I remember from year 12 physics. But while I don't remember the different technical terms, the above should still be generally correct. ^_^ )
There'll be people who can describe it in more technical detail than me though.
EDIT: So, let's say something starts out with a radioactivity level of x, and has a half life of a year.
After a year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/2.
After another year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/4.
After another year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/8.
etc.
So nothing really ever loses all it's radioactivity, too. It's more a matter of waiting until it's radioactivity is at a safe level.
(This is all just what I remember from year 12 physics. But while I don't remember the different technical terms, the above should still be generally correct. ^_^ )
I'm no science expert so I'm probably completely wrong, but I think the half-life of an element is when the potency of the element is half way diminished.
For example, take litium and say its half life is 40 (no idea if it is or not, just spitballing) so after 40 years it's of half potency.
Again, I'm probably completely wrong, but I just wanted to respond with my crappy answer.
For example, take litium and say its half life is 40 (no idea if it is or not, just spitballing) so after 40 years it's of half potency.
Again, I'm probably completely wrong, but I just wanted to respond with my crappy answer.
Yay science threads. I believe an atom's half life is the measure of how long it takes it to lose half its electrons. Therefore, you can measure how old organic material is by counting the electrons in the isotopes if you know the element's half life. But I may be wrong. Too lazy to Google it.
/thread. It's nice how short these single-right-answer threads are. Although I think it also applies to an elements mass, not just radioactivity.TriGGeR_HaPPy said:I believe that, in laymans terms, every time an element passes its half-life, it's level of radioactivity is halved.
There'll be people who can describe it in more technical detail than me though.
EDIT: So, let's say something starts out with a radioactivity level of x, and has a half life of a year.
After a year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/2.
After another year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/4.
After another year, the element's radioactivity level is at x/8.
etc.
So nothing really ever loses all it's radioactivity, too. It's more a matter of waiting until it's radioactivity is at a safe level.
For discussion value:
...er... So how about that half-life? Pretty cool, ain't it?
If you have a quantity of radioactive substance, let's say Uranium-238 and 100g of it, once a length of time described as the 'half life' has passed, half of that mass of Uranium-238 will have undergone radioactive decay and become other elements. 4.468 billion years in the case of U-238. You would, at that point, have only 50g of Uranium-238 left. After another 4.468 billion years, you would have 25g, then 12.5g and so on, and so forth.
Further detail can be found in chemistry textbooks, physics textbooks and Wikipedia.
Further detail can be found in chemistry textbooks, physics textbooks and Wikipedia.