3 ms·
The half-life is statistical, not mechanistic, so there would be an inherent variability in that definition. The larger the radioactive mass and the longer the
by bcbrown 13y ago
The half-life is statistical, not mechanistic, so there would be an inherent variability in that definition. The larger the radioactive mass and the longer the time period, the less variability, but it's still variable.
- jjoonathan 13y agoThe fact that it's variable isn't a valid criticism on its own: there is uncertainty in every standard we use, and the objective is to minimize that uncertainty. It's quite possible that the practically achievable error bars from this method would be thinner than the practical error bars of another method. Besides, the fact that you can arbitrarily increase the precision of this method without hitting any hard physical limitations is a solid selling point.
- bcbrown 13y agoYou are right that there's always going to be uncertainty. Perhaps it turns out that in practice, the uncertainty with this method is less than other approaches. The point I was trying to make was about the different between incidental uncertainty due to imprecise equipment, and more fundamental uncertainty due to physical laws. For example, other intrinsic uncertainties are the Planck resolution for time and space, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for certain combinations of information. Similar to those, radioactivity has a fundamental limit. We cannot predict when an atom will emit radiation, all we can do is make a statistical prediction.