As someone whose academic background was in nuclear stuff (but ~10 years ago alas), I had fun read of this article for the considerations like "ohh, a 'half lif

As someone whose academic background was in nuclear stuff (but ~10 years ago alas), I had fun read of this article for the considerations like "ohh, a 'half life' with multiple decay modes of varying weights depending on the environment, etc. Gives an itch to dive back into numbers wrangling/plotting! I agree that an accurate description of the (atmospheric in this case) systems over time definitely needs reaction rates, but similar considerations are also needed with nuclear radiation in a lot of situations too: e.g. the overall uhh radioactivity (for lack of recollection of precise terms) is a function of the chain of decay products, which are also often radioactive. That is to say, you might start with half-lives in calculations for dose estimation as a function of time, but you quickly get into more complex things. Also in the nuclear realm, add sources, like a running reactor, or a fresh set of fuel rods, and you get some very interesting effects over time! I think this article was a fair example walkthrough of how things quickly get more complex than the numbers (mis)quoted to the public. I was hoping it would go further, even.