Can you find out the date of a radioactive material wothout

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the challenges of determining the half-life and starting time of an unknown radioactive material. Participants explore whether it is possible to ascertain these values without prior knowledge of the material's properties or decay characteristics, focusing on theoretical and experimental approaches.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions whether the half-life and starting time can be determined without prior knowledge of the material.
  • Another participant suggests that the half-lives of known isotopes can be found online, specifically mentioning carbon-14 dating as an example.
  • Some participants propose that identifying the isotope through emission spectrum analysis is possible, but requires specific equipment.
  • There is a discussion about the decay process being memoryless, implying that the decay characteristics do not change over time.
  • One participant expresses confusion about the assumptions required for radioactive dating, questioning if it is possible to derive the half-life without knowing it beforehand.
  • Several participants mention that experimental measurement of the material's decay over time is necessary to determine its half-life.
  • There is a debate about the feasibility of measuring half-lives for materials with long decay times and the implications of decay randomness on measurements.
  • One participant highlights that without knowing the half-life or initial decay time, it is impossible to solve for the decay constant (λ).

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express varying opinions on the feasibility of determining the half-life and starting time of an unknown radioactive material. There is no consensus on whether it is possible to derive these values without prior knowledge or assumptions about the material.

Contextual Notes

Some participants note that the decay process is inherently random and that measuring decay over long timescales may introduce inaccuracies. The discussion also touches on the need for specific equipment to analyze unknown materials.

iceveela
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You have 100 grams of radioactive material, how do i know the half life and the time

i have 100 grams of material X.

you do not know the half-life
you do not know the time it started to decay

what is its half-life/starting time?

is this equation even solvable? if so, how?
 
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The half-lives of radioisotopes are well-known, you can look them up online in wikipedia for example.

For carbon-14 dating, organic material obtains an equilibrium concentration of carbon-14 equal to the concentration in the atmosphere (created by radiation from space). Once the material is dead and buried, no more new carbon-14 is accumulated and the exponential decay begins. Knowing the half-life of carbon-14, the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere (which is fairly constant except for the recent period of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing) and the current concentration, you can calculate the age of the material with the following equation:

N(t) = N_0 e^{\lambda t}

t = \frac{1}{\lambda} ln \frac{N}{N_0}
 
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sounds nice but i do not know what radioactive material X is, i have never seen it before...
 


It is possible to determine what isotope a radioactive substance is by measuring the type and energy of the emission and comparing its spectrum to a known database. You need the right equipment and software to do this though.
 


QuantumPion said:
It is possible to determine what isotope a radioactive substance is by measuring the type and energy of the emission and comparing its spectrum to a known database. You need the right equipment and software to do this though.

if this was a brand new material not known to man, how could i do it?
 
iceveela said:
if this was a brand new material not known to man, how could i do it?

I may be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure the half-lives of all radioactive isotopes are known, with the exception of extremely unstable and short-lived isotopes (which you could not use for dating anyway). You can see the chart here: http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/
 


The decay of a radioactive material is a process without memory - it means that the decay would look the same no matter how "old" the material is.
If you have 100 grams of this material, you define this as N_0 in the equation quoted above. If you want to find the half-life you should measure the amount you have left after a certain amount of time and then you can find out \lambda.

Without any further knowledge, you cannot use this material for dating. The way radioactive materials can be used for dating is by the additional knowledge of their abundance at a given time. If you know what N_0 was at some time in the past, and you know how much you have left, then knowing the half-life of the material allows you to calculate the time that has passed.

Hope this helps...
 


QuantumPion said:
I may be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure the half-lives of all radioactive isotopes are known, with the exception of extremely unstable and short-lived isotopes (which you could not use for dating anyway).

umm... so dating is calculated by the assumption that we already know the half-life? and no equation exist that can bring us to the half-life or decay starting time without either the half-life or the decay starting time?

i am confused!
 


iceveela said:
i am confused!

Nothing that a good course in Quantum Mechanics wouldn't cure.
 
  • #10


iceveela - i think it would be helpful if you tried to explain again what exactly you know, and what you want to find out.

The lifetime (or half-life which is simply the lifetime multiplied by a constant) is a property of the radioactive substance. If you do not know anything about the substance, except that it is radioactive and that it weights 100gr, you cannot tell anything more by it.

If you know more, then please tell us what it is and we can go on...
 
  • #11


iceveela said:
umm... so dating is calculated by the assumption that we already know the half-life? and no equation exist that can bring us to the half-life or decay starting time without either the half-life or the decay starting time?

i am confused!

Radioactive dating uses some assumption about the concentration of a particular isotope in the past and compares its concentration to the present, using its known rate of decay (half-life).

If you had an unknown sample containing two radioactive substances, one that decayed into the other, it might be possible to determine the age of the sample by measuring the ratio of concentrations between the two.
 
  • #12
Hi..

Half-life is defined as the time required for the radioactive material to decay to half its initial value...The initial value means the value at the time you started observing...

If you have 100 gms left...then half-life is the time when you have 50 grams left...

Experimentally, you would have a detector which measures radioactivity...You measure radio activity at time t1...then wait for the radioactivity to become half the value you started with...note the time as t2...and your half-life is t2-t1...

It does not matter when you start your observation...
 
  • #13


Integral said:
Nothing that a good course in Quantum Mechanics wouldn't cure.

Not at all, this is Chemistry 101 really.
 
  • #14


If you do not know the half-life apriori, you will have to determine it by experiment- that is, measure the amount of radioactive substance now, wait at while (the longer you wait (the more accurate you result) and measure the amount now. Taking "t" to be the time you waited and "T" to be the unknown half line, A(0) to be the amount you first measured and A(t) to be the amount you measured at time t, you have
\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)^{t/T}= \frac{A(t)}{A(0)}.

You know t, A(0), and A(t) so you can solve for T.

Once you know T, you can then solve the problem you were given.
 
  • #15


ok, you guys are confusing me, in order to find out what "λ" is you need the half-life or the initial decay starting time...

"The decay constant (λ) of radioactive decay is equal to the reciprocal value of the average lifetime (τ). Between the decay constant, the average lifetime, and the half-life (T½) the following relations exist:

λ = τ -1 = T½-1 · ln 2 "

and in order to find that out, you need to know at least the half-life or the initial time. but you cannot find that out until you know that "λ" is...

ahhhhh!
 
  • #16
I guess you cannot solve, i.e. you won't get any numerical values without using some e.g., detector and proportional counter.
Because solving your problem is same as solving two equations with more than 2 unknown quantities.
 
  • #17


iceveela said:
umm... so dating is calculated by the assumption that we already know the half-life? and no equation exist that can bring us to the half-life or decay starting time without either the half-life or the decay starting time?

i am confused!

Take advice from an astronomer, never ask a quantum physicist about physics.

You find the half life by measuring its mass...waiting...and then measuring its mass again. THEN CALCULATING.
 
  • #18
Note, this thread has been merged with an identical thread from General Physics.
 
  • #19


TheRealTL said:
You find the half life by measuring its mass...waiting...and then measuring its mass again. THEN CALCULATING.

how does this work with large-scale times like thorium 232, uranium 238 and Samarium-147, just "measuring the mass and waiting" will be highly inaccurate for these large-timescale rocks...besides, the decay rate is random...
 
  • #20


TheRealTL said:
find the half life by measuring its mass...waiting...and then measuring its mass again. THEN CALCULATING.

I think that would only work if the decay product happened to be a gas that escaped the sample! And even then it would be extremely difficult to quantify.

Generally the way to determine the half-life is to measure the activity of the sample over time. It will decay exponentially according the formula above.

iceveela said:
how does this work with large-scale times like thorium 232, uranium 238 and Samarium-147, just "measuring the mass and waiting" will be highly inaccurate for these large-timescale rocks...besides, the decay rate is random...

The decay of any single nucleus is random, but the average decay rate for a very large number of atoms is not. Some isotopes have such long half-lives that they were until recently though to be stable, such as Bismuth-209. But for U-238 and others, even though they are long-lived isotopes, it is still not too difficult to measure their half-lives because of the scales involved (huge number of atoms).
 
  • #21
If it is long lived... you need the spectrum.

If it is short lived... forget, you have no a radiactive source anymore.

If it is mid-lived: measure the Intensity (power, watts, calorimeter, counter). Wait for the intensity to decrease to one half of the initial you have measured. This interval is the half live.
 
  • #22


QuantumPion said:
The decay of any single nucleus is random, but the average decay rate for a very large number of atoms is not. Some isotopes have such long half-lives that they were until recently though to be stable, such as Bismuth-209. But for U-238 and others, even though they are long-lived isotopes, it is still not too difficult to measure their half-lives because of the scales involved (huge number of atoms).

so the atom is not random if it is in large quantities? so by what you say, it is not inaccurate to measure something this way based on the assumption that the short lived radioactive materials are no different in randomness as ones that can take several billions of years. so it should be accurate to measure the difference in a certain time period and date that small difference in the material back several billion or trillion years?

this does not seem scientific to me, it sounds like it is based on estimates. (if 100 grams of uranium 238 loses .0000004 grams of mass because of decay in a time-frame of 2 years, thus, it should be OK to say that this tiny fragment can be traced back to 4.5 billion years) that does not seem like science to me. unless you know for a fact that this number is constant throughout time, which of course, with large scale decay, we really do not know...

so why say it is constant when we really do not know that it is?
 
  • #23
I am a little confused about what exactly is the question...

Let me rephrase the question and please let us know if this is what you wanted...


Someone presented you with 100 gms of a radioactive material...he or she has not given you any information about the material...what it is or where it was obtained from etc...

..you want to find its decay constant and half-life...you are allowed to do any experiment you want...so how will you do it?

Is this your question?
 
  • #24
krishna mohan said:
I am a little confused about what exactly is the question...

Let me rephrase the question and please let us know if this is what you wanted...


Someone presented you with 100 gms of a radioactive material...he or she has not given you any information about the material...what it is or where it was obtained from etc...

..you want to find its decay constant and half-life...you are allowed to do any experiment you want...so how will you do it?

Is this your question?

the question is: i have 100 grams of a unknown substance, i do not have the half life or the starting decay time. i need to accurately measure the half-life and the starting decay time. i am NOT allowed to just take a sample over a time frame and backtrack it as i cannot base it on assumptions that it was always constant. or any other assumptions...

how do i find the half-life/decay starting time?
 
  • #25
iceveela said:
the question is: i have 100 grams of a unknown substance, i do not have the half life or the starting decay time. i need to accurately measure the half-life and the starting decay time. i am NOT allowed to just take a sample over a time frame and backtrack it as i cannot base it on assumptions that it was always constant. or any other assumptions...

how do i find the half-life/decay starting time?

There is no physical "decay starting time" as you have phrased it. Radioactive isotopes are always decaying.

You can determine the half-life by measuring the activity now and some time t later and solve for lambda in the equation above.

Half lives are fundamental properties of particular isotopes and do not change over time (as far as we know). If you measure what the half-life is now you know what it was a billion years ago.

You can only determine how old the sample is based on how far your assumptions about its history go. If you can't make any assumptions then you cannot make any determination about its age.
 
  • #26


iceveela said:
so the atom is not random if it is in large quantities? so by what you say, it is not inaccurate to measure something this way based on the assumption that the short lived radioactive materials are no different in randomness as ones that can take several billions of years. so it should be accurate to measure the difference in a certain time period and date that small difference in the material back several billion or trillion years?

this does not seem scientific to me, it sounds like it is based on estimates. (if 100 grams of uranium 238 loses .0000004 grams of mass because of decay in a time-frame of 2 years, thus, it should be OK to say that this tiny fragment can be traced back to 4.5 billion years) that does not seem like science to me. unless you know for a fact that this number is constant throughout time, which of course, with large scale decay, we really do not know...

so why say it is constant when we really do not know that it is?

I think you are misunderstanding what random means. If I toss one coin, it is completely random whether it lands heads or tails even though each have equal probability. If I toss 10 coins, the most probable outcome is that 5 will land heads and 5 will land tails. It could also be 4/6 or 3/7 but the probability of those combinations occurring are exponentially lower. If I toss a billion billion billion coins, the number of heads versus tails will be extremely close to 50%.

If I take one U-238 atom, it could decay any second or in 10 billion years. If I take a billion billion billion U-238 atoms, the number that decay every second will be very close to lambda.
 
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  • #27


QuantumPion said:
I think you are misunderstanding what random means. If I toss one coin, it is completely random whether it lands heads or tails even though each have equal probability. If I toss 10 coins, the most probable outcome is that 5 will land heads and 5 will land tails. It could also be 4/6 or 3/7 but the probability of those combinations occurring are exponentially lower. If I toss a billion billion billion coins, the number of heads versus tails will be extremely close to 50%.

If I take one U-238 atom, it could decay any second or in 10 billion years. If I take a billion billion billion U-238 atoms, the number that decay every second will be very close to lambda.

but this is all based on assumptions... not fact...
 
  • #28


iceveela said:
but this is all based on assumptions... not fact...

Please clarify what you are referring to.
 
  • #29


QuantumPion said:
Please clarify what you are referring to.

by saying that this is based similarly like the flipping of a coin, you are bringing it down to chance that your assumption, like the false assumptions that the rates of decay are constant, not only is this a common sense rationality, it is based on scientific proof: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html you declare that it is always constant, that would be a lie.

"If I take one U-238 atom, it could decay any second or in 10 billion years. If I take a billion billion billion U-238 atoms, the number that decay every second will be very close to lambda"

you seem to place this on the assumption that the more chaos you have the more ordered the data. this is not true, even within error margin. fluctuations occur throughout time, and many different elements have been found out to be decaying faster and slower depending on the element. with many dating methods we have seen varying and severely inaccurate ages.

Edit by Evo: Deleted links to religious sources

all backed by scientific research, read the sources. many of the dating methods were proven to be incorrect by using this method. if real science journals from Stanford university, and others say it is not a constant, and cannot be trusted for the age of the rock. how could you possibly think that you can date a rock back that way when it has been scientifically observed to be fluctuating at least every 33 days.

thus scientific research proves that the reliability of the "constant date-back" method that you used to be completely unreliable, and scientifically inaccurate.
 
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  • #30
Iceveela,
Your links are not acceptable in this forum, note we need peer reviewed articles, not crackpots sites which have an agenda.

Most of your questions could be answered with a BS in Physics, Please go get that background, then return with your questions. We cannot possibly teach you all that is needed on these forums. Especially since you have an agenda and have already made up your mind. Someone who already knows everything can learn nothing.

END OF THREAD
 

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