1. The half-life of I-131 is 8.04 days. On a certain day, the activity of an iodine-131 sample
is 6.40 mCi. What is its activity 40.2 days later? (10)
2. Find the decay constant of cesium-137, half-life 30.2 yr; then calculate the activity in Bq
and Ci for a sample containing 3×1019 atoms. (10)
3. The radioactive isotope Au-198 has a half-life of 64.8 hr. A sample containing this
isotope has an initial activity of 40.0 μCi. Calculate the number of nuclei that decay in the
time interval between t1 = 10 hr and t2 = 12 hr. (10)
4. A 25.0-g piece of charcoal is found in some ruins of an ancient city. The sample shows a
C-14 activity of 250 decays/min. How long has the tree this charcoal came from been
dead? Hint: You must first determine the number of C-12 nuclei in 25 g of charcoal.
Then use the ratio of C-14/C-12 in the live sample to calculate the number of C-14 nuclei
before decay. It is very important for you to know that C-12 does not decay because it is
the stable isotope. (20)
5. In a piece of rock from the Moon, the Rb-87 content is roughly about 1.82×1010 atoms
per gram of material and the Sr-87 content is found to be 1.07×109
atoms per gram.
Calculate the age of the rock. (20)
Hint: The relevant decay is
Rb Sr e
87 87
with the half-life of 4.75×1010
yr
6. With the following data, deduce the half-life and the decay constant of an “unknown”
sample (10)
Time (s) Counting rate (/s)
0 300
1000 282
2000 262
3000 244
4000 231
7. According to the following decay process, Cs decays into the unstable Ba whose then
decays into a stable isotope of La.
Cs Ba La
The initial activity of Cs-139 is 1 mCi. Cs and Ba have a half life of 9.5 min and 82.9
min. Find
a. When does the maximum activity of Ba occur? (30)
b. The value of Ba activity. (20)
c. The value of Cs and La activity (20)
8. Starting from equation 15 Prove equation 16 (10)
9. Prove equation 19 (10)
10. Show that
t N t N e
0
( )
can be written as
( ) 2 1/ 2 0
T
t
N t N
(10)