Comment

Afaik its always going to have some parts of uranium right? 50% after one half life, 25% after two half lives and it will keep on halving practically forever (or till the last atom decays). In the end it comes down to when you consider it a negligible amount.

source

Sort:hotnew top

JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
I mean, yes, that’s how it would work if there were an infinite number of atoms in the piece. There’s a finite amount, though, so eventually there will be a point when all the atoms have completely decayed.

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

source
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
after a certain point, you’re going to get to where you have to split an atom or two.

fairly sure that’d be far less exciting than normal.

source
- SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  half life times log2(amount of atoms), right?
  
  source
  - FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    I mean I didn’t get that far, I lost track of how many zeroes were in the half-life.
    
    (It’s 704ish million, right?)
    
    source
HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Yeah, thats what I was using to get 14%.

2billion years is about 2.8 halflives, so I calculated (1/2)^2.8 ~ 0.14.

source
Hupf@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
xkcd.com/1153/

source