DATE: March 14, 2023

NAME: Kamal Graham

EXPERIMENT NUMBER: 11

TITLE: RADIOACTIVE DECAY

AIM: To show radioactive decay and determine the half-life of the decay.

THEORY: What is the half-life of a radioactive substance?

Every radioactive element has its own definite decay rate, expressed by its half-

life, T1/2. Half-life is the time taken for half the atoms in a given sample to

decay. Half-lives can vary from millionths of a second to millions of years.

APPARATUS AND MATERIALS:

● 200 coins
● A small plastic bucket with a lid or carton box with a lid.

PROCEDURE:
1. The coins were shaken and thrown out onto the table.
2. All coins with their head facing upwards were removed. The remaining
coins were counted and recorded.
3. The remaining coins were then gathered, shaken, and thrown onto the
table.
4. Steps 2 and 3 were repeated.
5. The experiment was repeated until very few coins were left.
DATA COLLECTED:

TABLE SHOWING THE RESULTS COLLECTED DURING EXPERIMENT

Number of throws Number of Coins Number of Coins

(Throw number) Thrown Remaining (tails)

0 0 200

1 200 118

2 118 58

3 58 26

4 26 15

5 15 8

6 8 5

7 5 3

8 3 1

9 1 1
DATA ANALYSIS:

1. Graph of number of coins remaining against throw number.

2. Determining the number of throws it takes for the number of remaining

coins to reduce to half for four different values of the number of coins
remaining.

From the graph, the following information was extracted.

Number of coins Half the number of Number of throws to

remaining coins remaining reduce the number of
remaining coins by half

200 100 1.1

100 50 1.2

50 25 1.0

25 13 1.0

AVERAGE THROW NUMBER 1.1

3. The system does appear to have a constant half-life. The average half-life
obtained was 1.1.

SOURCES OF ERROR:
1. Not all the coins which landed on tails may have been counted.
2. Some coins may have fallen out of the container after shaking it.

CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, radioactive decay was shown using the coin simulation and
the average half-life of the decay was found to be 1.1 throws.
SKILLS ASSESSED: ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

CRITERIA ASSESSED Marks

1. Conclusion: determination of half-life. /2

2. Conclusion: Determine if graph demonstrated half-life /2

3. Calculation of half the number of coins remaining for 3 half-lives /2

● All correct: 2 marks.
● Some correct: 1 mark

4. Used graph to calculate number of throws to reduce the number of remaining /4

coins by half (1 mark for each)

TOTAL /10