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Sunday 4 September 2011

Physics GRE - #33

A radioactive nucleus decays, with the activity shown in the plot below. The half-life of the nucleus is:


  1. 2 min
  2. 7 min
  3. 11 min
  4. 18 min
  5. 23 min

Solution :

Choice 2 is the answer.

The initial activity is $6\cdot 10^3$ (yes, 6 since the line marked $10^3$ is really $1\cdot 10^3$ and you start counting up from there). At $3\cdot 10^3,$ the time is around 5 to 10 minutes. Thus the only possible answer is choice 2.

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