Nuclear physics interesting experiments and activities

[tinocasals]

Hi there,

I'm looking for some interesting activities regarding nuclear physics in high school.

I already have:
- building a cloud chamber with dry ice or peltier modules
- simulating radioactive decay with dice
- simulating Rutherford's experiment hitting with glass marbles a hidden target and trying to figure out the shape

Any fun/didactic/interesting/innovative idea?

Thanks!

 

[kuruman]

I find the idea of radioactive decay attractive because simulating it is quite inexpensive. I wouldn't use dice, though, but a lot of pennies. Heads is an undecayed nucleus and tails a decayed nucleus. You put all the coins in pile "A" and flip them all at once, then remove the decayed nuclei (tails) into a separate pile marked "B". This marks one half-life of the parent nucleus. You count the coins in each pile an plot them in separate plots. Now the nuclei in daughter B are also unstable with a half-life of, say, twice that of B and decay to C which is stable. This means that for every two tosses of the A pile, you toss the B pile once. Naturally, the B coins that land tails must be moved to the C pile. Students make a plot of the coins in each pile as a function of the half-life intervals of A. There should be a maximum in the number of coins in B because the B half-life is longer than the A. Students can play around with the ratio of half-lives and see what happens when is much larger or smaller than the other. They might even make C unstable and add decay product D. It would also be fun to compare against the theoretical expressions for $N(t)$,
$$N_A(t)=N_0 e^{-\lambda_At};~~N_B(t)= \frac{\lambda_AN_0}{\lambda_B-\lambda_A} \left( e^{-\lambda_At}-e^{-\lambda_Bt} \right);~~N_C(t)=\frac{N_0}{\lambda_B-\lambda_A} \left[ (\lambda_B-\lambda_A)+\lambda_Ae^{-\lambda_Bt}-\lambda_Be^{-\lambda_At} \right],$$
where $\lambda=ln2/t_{1/2}$.

 

[berkeman]

Hi there,

I'm looking for some interesting activities regarding nuclear physics in high school.

I already have:
- building a cloud chamber with dry ice or peltier modules
- simulating radioactive decay with dice
- simulating Rutherford's experiment hitting with glass marbles a hidden target and trying to figure out the shape

Any fun/didactic/interesting/innovative idea?

Thanks!

Welcome to the PF.

Do you have a Geiger Counter in your lab equipment stock? We had one at my small high school, and it was pretty fun and instructive to use. Nowadays you can even get inexpensive USB and Cell Phone versions:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/FTl...-Radiation-checker-more-safe/32627825778.html

 

[tinocasals]

Welcome to the PF.

Do you have a Geiger Counter in your lab equipment stock? We had one at my small high school, and it was pretty fun and instructive to use. Nowadays you can even get inexpensive USB and Cell Phone versions:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/FTl...-Radiation-checker-more-safe/32627825778.html
View attachment 218879

I have some uranium glass, a smoke detector... Do you know if the Cell phone version would give signal above the background for low radioactive materials?

 

[berkeman]

I have some uranium glass, a smoke detector... Do you know if the Cell phone version would give signal above the background for low radioactive materials?

I don't know without reading more about it. Maybe you could look at its datasheet and compare the numbers to what you find from Google searches about your samples. And it's probably a good idea to look at the datasheets for several different Geiger Counter types and models, to see if they are a lot more sensitive (does sensitivity ratio with cost significantly?).

Or have your students do it as an exercise...