Did you know?
Did you know that the half-life of oxygen-15 is 124 seconds? This means that after 124 seconds, the activity of a sample of oxygen-15 will decrease by half. For example, if a sample initially has an activity of 4000 Bq, after 124 seconds it will have an activity of 2000 Bq.
Now, let's solve a problem using this knowledge. If we start with a sample of oxygen-15 with an activity of 4000 Bq and want to know how many minutes it will take for the activity to reach 500 Bq, we can use the concept of half-life. Since the half-life is 124 seconds, we need to find how many half-lives it takes for the activity to reach 500 Bq.
To do this, we can set up an equation:
4000 Bq * (1/2)^(n) = 500 Bq
Solving this equation, we find that n is approximately 3.33. Since each half-life is 124 seconds, we can calculate the time it takes for 3.33 half-lives by multiplying n by 124 seconds.
Therefore, it will take approximately 412 seconds, or roughly 6.88 minutes, for the activity of the oxygen-15 sample to reach 500 Bq.
