What is the Mean Lifetime of Muons?

[FlixB]

Homework Statement

I am doing an experiment where I try to the determine the mean lifetime of muons. I collected enough data and I put it in a histogram (attached file), but I have no idea how to calculate the mean lifetime with this.

Homework Equations

y(t)=Ne^(-t/τ), where τ is the mean lifetime and N the initial amount of muons

The Attempt at a Solution

I plotted a trendline in excel and got a line with the formula y=-4.85ln(x)+10.637, which wasn't very helpful.
Because the histogram shows the amount of muons that decays and not the amount of muons left I thought I should use dy/dt=Ne^(-t/τ)*(-1/τ), but this hasn't gotten me any closer either.

 

[BvU]

Hello Flix, welcome to PF

This fitted line has a slope for ln(y) . Did you check what you expect for the slope of the line obtained when plotting ln(dy/dt) ?

 

[andrevdh]

The counts is in effect the activity, A, of the sample.
The mean life of the muons is the inverse of the decay constant.