Question

After each half-life cycle, what percentage of the radioactive nuclei became nonradioactive?

a) 25%
b) 50%
c) 75%
d) 100%

Answer 1

After each half-life cycle, 50% of the radioactive nuclei become nonradioactive, which corresponds to answer b) 50%.

Step-by-step explanation:

After each half-life cycle, 50% of the radioactive nuclei become nonradioactive. Therefore, the correct answer to the student's question is b) 50%. The concept of half-life is critical in understanding radioactive decay which is a statistical process characteristic of exponential decay. If you have N radioactive nuclei initially, after one half-life has elapsed, the number of radioactive nuclei decreases to N/2. In the next half-life, half of the remaining radioactive nuclei, now N/4, decay, and after three half-lives, the number of remaining radioactive nuclei is N/8.