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Re: lower division radioactivity & ECG labs, anyone?




"Daniel L. MacIsaac" <macisaac@bohr.phy.nau.edu> writes:

I think the dice activity (throwing a few hundred dice a few times
and removing a chosen number as decayed) looks good .

It may teach the fundamentals of radioactive decay .... but it can be
quite boring to throw a few hundred dice and then sort out the dice
number selected as the "decayed". Use a short lived radio isotope, such
as Barium 137m, that will give you three half lives of millions of atoms
in about 8 minutes. Details of this experiment are given in my newly
reprinted lab book , "Experiments for Physics Labs" Analog Press 1 800
223 1974

I'll be in New Orleans for the AAPT meeting later this week. Hope to see
you there.

Herb Gottlieb from New York City
(Where real radio-isotopes are more exciting and more realistic than
decayed dice numbers or tails-up pennies to measure half life of decayed
atoms)