How an element can decay all the way to zero, when it has a “half-life”

Question

I’m sure there is an easy answer to this, but for some reason I can’t wrap my head around how a sample of an element can ever decay all the way to zero, when measured in half lives. It seems like you could always split a number in half, it would just be infinitesimally small.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Because the quantum of an element is 1 atom. You cannot divide a single atom of an element and still have that same element.

Half-life decay is a measure of a large population of atoms. Once that last atom decays, there is no more population.