{"id":38366,"date":"2025-06-26T09:30:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T09:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/?p=38366"},"modified":"2025-06-26T09:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T09:30:10","slug":"half-life-of-plutonium-239-is-24300-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/half-life-of-plutonium-239-is-24300-years\/","title":{"rendered":"half life of plutonium-239 is 24,300 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>half life of plutonium-239 is 24,300 years. if a nuclear bomb released 8kg of this isotope, how many years would pass before the amt is reduced to 1kg<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color\">The correct answer and explanation is:<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Correct Answer: 72,900 years<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To determine how long it will take for 8 kg of plutonium-239 to decay to 1 kg, the law of radioactive decay is used. This law is based on the principle that the amount of a radioactive substance decreases by half every half-life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The formula used is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>N = N\u2080 \u00d7 (1\/2)^(t\/T)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>N<\/strong> is the final amount (1 kg)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>N\u2080<\/strong> is the initial amount (8 kg)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>t<\/strong> is the time in years (what we are solving for)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>T<\/strong> is the half-life (24,300 years)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Divide both sides of the equation by N\u2080:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>(1\/8) = (1\/2)^(t\/24,300)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now rewrite 1\/8 as (1\/2)^3:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>(1\/2)^3 = (1\/2)^(t\/24,300)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the bases are the same, equate the exponents:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3 = t \/ 24,300<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Solve for <strong>t<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>t = 3 \u00d7 24,300 = 72,900 years<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This means that it will take <strong>72,900 years<\/strong> for the 8 kilograms of plutonium-239 to decay to 1 kilogram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Radioactive decay is exponential, meaning the substance decays by half every fixed period (in this case, every 24,300 years). After the first half-life, 8 kg becomes 4 kg. After the second, it becomes 2 kg. After the third half-life, it becomes 1 kg. Each half-life takes the same amount of time, so the total time for three half-lives is 3 \u00d7 24,300 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Understanding radioactive decay is important for nuclear safety, environmental science, and calculating the long-term impact of nuclear materials. The persistence of radioactive substances like plutonium-239 demonstrates why handling and storage of nuclear waste must be managed carefully over extremely long timescales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>half life of plutonium-239 is 24,300 years. if a nuclear bomb released 8kg of this isotope, how many years would pass before the amt is reduced to 1kg The correct answer and explanation is: Correct Answer: 72,900 years To determine how long it will take for 8 kg of plutonium-239 to decay to 1 kg, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quiz-questions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38367,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38366\/revisions\/38367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaviki.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}