Tried looking it up and it got complicated real quick.
In: Physics
Nuclear decay is a first-order reaction. Viz. The rate of the reaction is directly proportional to the amount of material. When a nucleus decays, it releases decay products and energy particles, and we can count the number of decay particles using a Geiger counter against time.
The real scientific problem here is getting a pure enough sample in the first place i.e. the amount of uranium 238, for example, in a particular sample. That has been solved by clever chemistry and isotope separation.
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