Radioactive Decay: Concepts and Mathematical Applications

Course overview

This course is designed to familiarize one with the concept of radioactive decay. It covers the definition of decay and describes what a half-life is as well as its mathematical relationship to decay. In particular, both prospective and retrospective decay are discussed and examples are given for each. In addition, examples of graphical analysis are given and half-life is determined from a decay curve. There is a review of the mathematical relationship between the decay constant and the half-life and a comparison is made between the linear absorption coefficient and the decay constant. Finally, there is a variety of math problems included involving an increase or decrease in activity as a function of elapsed time.