Uranium-234 has a half-life of 246,000 years. How did we measure that if the technology to do that hasn’t been around that long?

Question

Uranium-234 has a half-life of 246,000 years. How did we measure that if the technology to do that hasn’t been around that long?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

As others have already explained, you don’t need to measure the half-life of an element to know it.

You can measure it’s three-quarters-life too, or one-tenth-life, or nine-tenth-life, or even the nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousand–nine-hundred-ninety-ninth-life, and get the information you need.

Half-life is just convenient because it’s straight in the middle.