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beatlemaniac
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Homework Statement
Today our class used a Geiger–Müller tube for the first time, and we conducted a short experiment to prove that Newton's Inverse Square Law also applies to radioactivity. We recorded the number of clicks from a small sample of Strontium-90 for ten seconds at halved distances, as shown below...
Distance from sample (m) = 0.24
No. of clicks = 5, 6, 7, 3, 2
Average = 4.6
Distance from sample (m) = 0.12
No. of clicks = 5, 13, 5, 4, 6
Average = 6.6
Distance from sample (m) = 0.06
No. of clicks = 18, 21, 21, 27, 28
Average = 23
Distance from sample (m) = 0.03
No. of clicks = 42, 30, 45, 50, 44
Average = 42.2
Distance from sample (m) = 0.015
No. of clicks = 114, 97, 82, 96, 94
Average = 96.6
As you can see the number of clicks seems to be doubling as the distance is halved, not squaring as we expected. Any ideas on we were doing wrong?
Homework Equations
[tex]\textit{Bq}\propto\frac{1}{d^2}[/tex]
The Attempt at a Solution
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This is my first post on the site so I hope I have adhered to all your conventions and what not :)