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Re: Radioactive decay (pennies and nickles)



On Mon, 26 Aug 2002 10:05:54 -0500 "Frohne, Vickie" <VFrohne@BEN.EDU>
writes:

M&M's are slightly cheaper to purchase than pennies, and they are
preferred when you are asking the students to eat their apparatus.
However,
if you consider that you can use pennies year after year, use them in
numerous other experiments (measurement, density, voltaic pile, etc.),
and
that you can recover 100% of their initial cost when you recycle (by
spending) the used pennies, you can't beat the price of pennies.


It's a good idea, Vicki.
It also reminds me of another low-cost apparatus.

Known weights for use in the laboratory are very expensive and
easily lost from purchased sets. However, ordinary US nickles
have a mass that is very close to five grams each. Using cellophane tape
they can be bundled into "standard, known weight sets" of 10g, 20 g,
50 g, and 100g.

If any are lost, they are easily replaced for only five cents each
from readily available sources.

Herb Gottlieb
(An octogenerian who remembers when a nickle could still buy a candy bar)
s