eli5: What does the measurement “half life” mean and what does it represent when measuring things such as radiation?
In: Chemistry
I had it explained to me with the feeling of caffeine in coffee.
Once you drink coffee the caffeine takes about 4 hours for HALF of it to leave your body
After 4 hours “half” the caffeine that was in your system will remain in the 5th hour
So the 5th hour you will have half the caffeine of the previous 4 hours
Then in the 6th hour, you will have half the caffeine of the 5th hour in your system
And so on and so on till it’s all out of your system.
Because after the 4th hour, that’s when about half the caffeine is gone so caffeine in coffee has a “half life” of 4 hours
Sorry for grammer errors and the redundancy … Its 4am and I’m about to sleep
If I’m wrong and I could be, I’m sure some helpful redditor will correct me
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