Question

1. What happens in the process of radioactive decay? What is the half-life of a radioactive substance, and how is it used to date an object?

Answer 1

In radioactive decay, an unstable atomic nucleus emits particles or radiation and converts to a different atomic nucleus. If the new nucleus is unstable, it will decay again, until eventually, a stable nucleus is formed. Such a sequence of nuclear decays forms a decay series.

The half-life of a radioactive substance is the time required for half of the atoms of a radioactive isotope to decay. If you have, say, 1 million atoms of a specific isotope in a sample, the time required for 500,000 of those atoms to decay is the half-life of that specific isotope. If you have 50 atoms of that isotope, 25 atoms will decay in the same amount of time.

Because the half-life is fixed for a specific isotope, it can be used to date objects. You compare the decay rate of an old object with the decay rate of a fresh sample. Nuclear decay is a first-order process and can be described by a specific mathematical equation, which depends on the decay rate and the half-life. Knowing those values, you can work back and determine the age of an object, as compared with a standard sample. Old objects will not have as much of a radioactive isotope in them as new objects, since the isotopes will have decayed over time in the old object.