3 ms·
Read the page. Half life is precisely defined. Your claim half-life doesn't apply is incorrect. All atoms undergo radioactive decay, so half life applies as pr
by ChrisLomont 5y ago
Read the page. Half life is precisely defined.
Your claim half-life doesn't apply is incorrect. All atoms undergo radioactive decay, so half life applies as precisely to all matter as is does to uranium.
- morelisp 5y agoEven if it were true that all atoms had a half-life, "DNA" is not an atom.
- ChrisLomont 5y agoDoesn't matter. Half life is used for anything that is modeled with exponential decay: energy systems, medicine effectiveness, caffeine in a body, oscillations. So if the essence of a thing breaks down, and the model for it is exponential decay, then it has a half life. Thus DNA has a half life, just as the paper in Nature, one of the premier scientific publications in the world, demonstrates.
- morelisp 5y agoNonetheless, "atomic radioactive decay exists and DNA is made of atoms" is not the reason DNA has its half-life, as your post claimed.
- ChrisLomont 5y agoNo where did I claim the decay is the one used in the article, in fact, my first sentence is "Read the page. Half life is precisely defined." I was well aware of their definition. My explanation was to point out that even if you don't like the definition in the article, that there are other valid ways to define half-life for atoms and complex molecules.
- credit_guy 5y ago> All atoms undergo radioactive decay Are you sure about that?
- baremetal 5y agoi guess he has never heard of a stable isotope.
- ChrisLomont 5y agoSo far the isotopes called "stable isotopes" are ones with unobserved decay, and slowly over time ones that used to be called stable are being found to decay (e.g., Bismuth 209). Quantum uncertainty (and still theoretical proton decay, expected to happen, just not measured well yet) are expected to get the rest. Ultimately quantum tunneling will get them all. There is no known mechanism to prevent it.
- kloch 5y agoI think the term "effectively stable" is what is meant in this context.