Perhaps a minor point, but it initially threw me off, and perhaps
others, was Hugh's use of the letter p for the radioactive decay
constant. There is a standard symbol for the decay constant, and it is
lower-case lambda. Thus, the half life is ln(2)/lambda.
I guess there is no law saying you have to use lambda, but when there is
a standard symbol, it is helpful to use it. If someone decides to write
an equation using b as the Boltzmann's constant rather than k, it's
going to throw people off for a while. Likewise, the use of p instead
of lambda threw me off.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu