The discussion centers around the nature of tritium's nuclear decay, specifically questioning whether it is possible for tritium to decay in a very short time frame, such as 1 second, or over an extremely long period, like 1 eon. The conversation explores theoretical aspects of radioactive decay, randomness, and the implications of half-life in both conceptual and experimental contexts.
Participants express differing views on the implications of randomness in decay rates and the potential for variations in half-life. While some agree on the established randomness of decay, others introduce examples that suggest exceptions, leading to unresolved disagreements regarding the nature of decay in tritium specifically.
Some discussions reference the limitations of current understanding regarding decay rates and the conditions under which they might change, highlighting the complexity of the topic without reaching definitive conclusions.
Orodruin said:Matterwave: The most likely time of decay is at t=0 since the decay time for a single nucleus follows an exponential distribution. This is reflected in the fact that if you take a lot of tritium the decay rate will be largest in the beginning (simply due to each tritium atom having a fixed probability of decay per time unit). Of course, this still does not change the fact that the mean life time is non-zero, or that you will have very close to half of the nuclei left after a time equal to the half-life has passed - which follows directly from the central limit theorem.
Actually they have been discovered. Which means the answer to the OP is that nuclear half lives have a random component of nearly 100%.Duplex said:If a weak nonrandom variation in half-life existed, it should certainly already have been discovered. I think that only on that basis physicists would try to figure out how to accelerate or "freeze" half-life.