Re: Radioactive decay

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

Referring to this:

> > The procedure was repeated ten times. The result were:
> >
> > 1, 1, 4, 0, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3
> >
> > On the average 16 black spots or 1.6 per throw. I rounded
> > this to 2 and removed 2 pencils.

"John S. Denker" wrote:

> I'm slightly confused at this point.  I don't see
> the purpose of the repetition and averaging -- it
> seems to be extra work, and the work is worse than
> wasted, because it detracts from the otherwise-excellent
> simplicity and immediacy of the demonstration.
>
> Why not just toss the pencils and immediately snatch
> away all those that land black-spot-up?

Because individual outcomes fluctuate widely while the
average from ten trials is more stable. It is like using ten
times more pencils in the procedure. Following your,
approach, John, I would do the averaging over decay
sequences rather than averaging at the level of each step.

Unless the number of pencils (or coins etc., as you
suggested) is very large, averaging is unavoidable when
the purpose is to demonstrate that N=No*exp(-lambda*t).
Note that neither averaging nor rounding was necessary
in a program when No was 10,000.

> I disagree!  The indivisibility of pencils accuratly
> models the indivisibility of atoms -- so why fight it?
> Averaging detracts from the accuracy and from the
> realism.

Do you still disagree? If so then elaborate.
Ludwik Kowalski