Why exactly do radioactive elements decay in half every set amount of time? What is happening on an atomic scale?
In: Physics
So radioactive atoms are unstable. This instability makes them decay. Some are more unstable than others so they decay faster or slower. Imagine for a moment that each second a dice is rolled for each atom. If the dice is on a right number it will decay and if not it won’t. The more unstable the more correct numbers there are. With large numbers of atoms you will expect a given percent to decay on each dice roll based on how unstable the atom is. The half life describes the expected amount of time for half a sample to decay. Understand that as more decay you are rolling fewer dice but the percent of dice that result in a decay will always be the same for a given element. This also means that for a single atom there is no way to know when it will decay just like there is no way to know the outcome of a single dice.
Hope this helps and feel free to ask for clarification.
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