Absolute

Dating
Problem Set
1. The half-life of isotope X is 2.0 years. How many
years would it take for a 4.0 mg sample of X to
decay and have only 0.50 mg of it remain?
2. Selenium-83 has a half-life of 25.0 minutes.
How many minutes would it take for a 10.0 mg
sample to decay and have only 1.25 mg of it
remain?
3. How much K-42 will be left in a 320 g sample
after 62 hours? K-42 half – life is 12 hours.
4. The half-life of Zn-71 is 2.4 minutes. If one had
100.0 g at the beginning, how many grams would
be left after 7.2 minutes has elapsed?
5. How long will it take for 18.0 grams of Ra-226 to
decay to leave a total of 2.25 grams? Ra-226 has a
half-life of 1600 years.
6. What fraction of sample H-3 will be left after
36.78 years? Half – life of H-3 is 12.26 years.
 7. Complete the data on the table.
Years from Present 0 5 730 11 460 17 190 22 920 28 650 34 380 40 110 45 480 51 570

Percent of Original
C14 remaining
8. Construct a graph for the first six points of the
decay 100mg Indium-115 which has a half – life of
4.5 hours.