The Random Nature of Decay Flashcards

All 3 cards in this deck

What does it mean to say that radioactive decay is random?

It cannot be predicted which nucleus will decay next, or when a particular nucleus will decay.

A student measures the activity of the same source four times and gets 21, 23, 19 and 22 Bq. What does this show?

That decay is random — the activity varies with no pattern.

True or false? Because decay is random, nothing about a radioactive sample can be predicted.

False. For a very large number of nuclei, half-life lets the activity be predicted.