Question

"why is not possible to predict when any particular radioactive nucleus will decay?"

Answer 1

@UnkleRhaukus @amistre64 @ParthKohli

Answer 2

@thomaster

Answer 3

@ganeshie8 @dan815

Answer 4

i didnt form this question,its in my phys report, and i dont know the answer to it

Answer 5

Perhaps there is some missing context

Answer 6

the question asked is

"why is not possible to predict when any particular radioactive nucleus will decay?"

Answer 7

Ah, that is a bit different.

Answer 8

u there?

Answer 9

Radioactive decay is probabilistic in nature.
If you have a large number of radionuclides you can make probabilistic predictions about the group- in one half-life about half of the nuclides will have decayed. But you cannot tell when any individual will decay,

Answer 10

y cant u tell when any individual will decay?

Answer 11

because they dont all decay at the same time

Answer 12

so you want to know why a nuclues never decays?

Answer 13

"why is not possible to predict when any particular radioactive nucleus will decay?"

Answer 14

because it's random when they will decay?

Answer 15

Consider; i have ten coins, i flip them all over,
if a tail that coin is removed,
if a head the coin can be re flipped,

every minute i re-flip all the coins that were heads last time,

.


You could do some statical analysis and predict that the game will last less then 10 minutes - most of the time.

however
sometimes, all coins will be tails on the first flip,
and sometimes, all the coins continue to flip heads and the game never ends

Answer 16

Making predictions about the coins game is similar to
making predictions about the radionuclides,

The data used to make the predictions is probabilistic data.

[this analysis is very different to trying to determine the behaviour of a single coin, (that would require knowing trajectories, velocities and dynamics.)(we dont have this data)]

Answer 17

thank u so much

Answer 18

did you try the game, do you have ten coins,?
i took me exactly ten flips, but that was just lucky

Answer 19

um.. no, i didnt try it becoz i'm busy with other q's of the report bt i will do it at sometime

Answer 20

as far as i can recall, the particles in question are soo small that any attempt to measure them affects their situation.

Answer 21

wht????

Answer 22

this time can u pls explain using the example of dice

Answer 23

do you have some dice to roll?

Answer 24

yes

Answer 25

can u ist explain the q then give example

Answer 26

"why is not possible to predict when any particular radioactive nucleus will decay?"

Answer 27

ok , well im gonna roll eight dice, and if one of them lands on a 1, it take it aside, every thing else, i re-roll , this repeats.

how long does the game last?

Answer 28

can u pls explain ist so we have a clue abt whts happening

Answer 29

explain the q' then examp

Answer 30

r u there?

Answer 31

i am hear, but i am not sure what you are asking me

Answer 32

Thnkx for the help don't worry bout it

Answer 33

A radioactive nucleus is often modeled as a hollow sphere in which there is a small marble. The hollow sphere has a small hole but large enough for the marble to pass through. The marble is considered to be bouncing around in the sphere until after a time it passes through the hole and escapes. consider a piggy bank with a coin that you are trying to shake out. Is it possible to predict when the coin will come out ie. how many shakes will it take to get the coin out? I think not. You can estimate the average number shakes to get the coin out of say 10000 bank by shaking them until a coin comes out and averaging the number of shakes that released a coin. that way if you came across another set of similar bank you could estimate how long it will take to release all the coins. So goes the coin in the bank so goes the radioactive nucleus.