For 1000k atoms I will have a 500k after 1 half life, and 250k after 2 half lives. But when I try to do the same with fractions something doesn’t add up. Because after “quarter life” i will have 750k atoms, but then I’ll have 562500 atoms, because of 750k multiplied by 0.75. So quarter life should be equal to 0.5 of half life, but half life doesn’t work that way. I am confused.
In: Physics
A quarter life would be less than 1/2 the time of half life
So if after 1 year your 1,000k atoms are now 500k atoms, the first quarter life would have happened before the 6 month point and the second quarter life that took you down to 562,500 atoms would have happened before the 1 year half life point
I’m not going to do the maths for it but for argument sake say it was 5 months for the quarter life then you would have had two quarter life points taking you down to 562,500 atoms by 10 months. Then by 12 months you would still hit the half life point
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