one half-life
Express your answer to three significant figures and include the appropriate units.
A half-life is the time it takes for half of a quantity of a radioactive substance to decay.
To express the answer, we need to know the quantity of the substance and the half-life period.
For example, let's assume the half-life of a substance is 10 days. If we start with a quantity of 100 grams, after one half-life, 50 grams will remain.
So, after one half-life, the quantity remaining is 50 grams.
The answer expressed to three significant figures with appropriate units is 50 grams.
To express one half-life to three significant figures, we need to clarify the context. A half-life is a term commonly used in nuclear physics and radioactivity to describe the time it takes for a radioactive substance to decay by half.
If you are referring to the specific half-life of a radioactive substance, you need to provide the element or isotope in question. Different elements have different half-lives.
However, if you are looking for a general approximation, the half-life of carbon-14 (C-14), a commonly referenced isotope, is approximately 5730 years.
Therefore, one half-life of carbon-14 is 5730 years (to three significant figures) with the appropriate units being years.