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Homework Statement
Suppose you have a 1.4g sample of old charcoal. It produces 0.7 beta decays per minute. How old is the charcoal.
Given:
1g of carbon current day has 6.36x1010 atoms of 14C
Homework Equations
N = Noe-rt
N = number of atoms in the sample (current-day)
No = original number of atoms (i.e. at time of death)
r = decay rate = 1.21x10-4
t = time
The Attempt at a Solution
I know that No = 1.4*6.36x1010 = 8.904x1010
r = 1.21x10-4
what I don't understand is what to do with the 0.7 decays per minute. I know I need to solve for N before I can solve for t, but I'm stuck. As soon as I solve for N, it's plug and chug.
Any help would be much appreciated!