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Suppose you have a radioisotope with a half-life of 2 years and you start with 800 grams. How much will you have two years from today? How much will you have 8 years from today?

User Babanana
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2 years:400
8 years: 3.125
User Harm
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After two years, you would have 400 grams of a radioisotope starting with 800 grams and a half-life of 2 years. After eight years, the amount would further reduce to 50 grams due to the sequential halving that occurs during each half-life period.

If you start with 800 grams of a radioisotope that has a half-life of 2 years, after one half-life period, which is 2 years in this case, you would have half of the initial amount. Therefore, after two years, you would have:

800 g / 2 = 400 g

After eight years, which is equivalent to four half-lives (since 8 years divided by 2 years per half-life equals 4 half-lives), you would calculate the remaining amount by dividing 800 grams by 2 four times (since each half-life halves the remaining quantity):

First half-life: 800 g / 2 = 400 g

Second half-life: 400 g / 2 = 200 g

Third half-life: 200 g / 2 = 100 g

Fourth half-life: 100 g / 2 = 50 g

So, after eight years, you would end up with 50 grams of the radioisotope.

User Johnnycardy
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