TITLE: Plan and Design

SCENARIO: Adhara is a Nuclear Physicist and works in a laboratory. In her care are three

radioactive samples and she had been tasked to determine the type of decay for each sample.

Plan and design an experiment to determine this.

HYPOTHESIS: The decay of the three radioactive samples can be identified by the number

of clicks recorded in each experiment

AIM: To identify the different radioactive emissions of three (3) different radioactive samples

using a geiger muller tube

APPARATUS: radioactive samples, secure holders for radioactive samples, long tongs, Geig

er-Muller tube and counter, stopwatch, pen, notebook

DIAGRAM:

DIAGRAM SHOWING SET UP OF THE EXPERIMENT

METHOD/PROCEDURE:

1. Measure the background radiation for 30 second intervals using a Geiger-Muller tube

without the radiation source in the room

2. Place the radiation source at a set starting distance appropriate for the ionizing

strength of the radiation from the Geiger-Muller tube

3. Once the sample is in place, record the number of clicks in 30-second intervals for 10

minutes or until the activity greatly decreases from the beginning value

4. Remove the sample and place into a lead-lined box or safe storage container

5. Repeat steps 1- 4 for each radioactive sample

VARIABLES:

Controlled – the size of each radioactive sample

Manipulated – time

Responding – increased number of clicks

EXPECTED RESULTS: The radiation that produces the greatest number of clicks is known

as gamma waves since they do not have an electric charge and do not interact with matter as

much as charged particles do. Of the remaining two types of radiation, beta particles will

produce the second greatest number of clicks. This is due to the beta particles being more

penetrating than the last radioactive sample, alpha particles. These results are expected

because alpha particles are large in size which reduces its penetration power thus, producing

the least number of clicks.

PRECAUTION: To reduce the likelihood of errors affecting the experiment’s results,

readings should be repeated since radioactive decay is random

SOURCE OF ERROR:

The Geiger- Muller counter may present an issue called dead time which is when multiple

counts happen simultaneously but the counter only registers one