TITLE: Radioactivity

AIM: To demonstrate radioactive decay and to determine the half-life of the decay.

APPARATUS/MATERIALS: 260 coins, tray, table top

METHOD/PROCEDURE:
1) Thoroughly shake the coins in the tray and throw all of them onto the table top.
2) Remove all the coins that showed heads and record the coins that were remaining.
3) Place the remaining coins into the tray and thoroughly shake them. Then throw
them onto the table.
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3.
5) Repeat the experiment until very few coins are left.
6) Tabulate the results.
7) Plot a graph of number of coins remaining against the number of throws.

OBSERVATION/RESULTS:

Number of Number of
throws coins
remaining
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
*Graph is drawn under Observation/Results*

CALCULATION:
• Interpolate two different half –life values from the graph drawn and find the average
result.

DISCUSSION:
• What is radioactivity? Make mention of the emissions that get emitted during
radioactivity.
• How does the throwing of coins simulate the decay process?
• When unstable atoms decay, they turn into more stable atoms. These resulting
atoms DO NOT have the same mass as the ‘reacting’ atom. As a matter of fact, the
more stable atoms now have LESS mass than the reacting atom. What happened to
the mass that was lost?