The half-life of a certain radioactive material is 85 days. An initial amount of the material has a mass of 801 kg. How do you write an exponential function that models the decay of this material and how much radioactive material remains after 10 days?

Question

8252 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-07-18T17:49:37

Let
#m_0="Initial mass"=801kg " at "t=0#

#m(t)="Mass at time t"#

#"The exponential function",m(t)=m_0*e^(kt)...(1)#
#"where " k=" constant"#

#"Half life"=85days=>m(85)=m_0/2#

Now when t =85days then

#m(85)=m_0*e^(85k)#

#=>m_0/2=m_0*e^(85k)#

#=>e^k=(1/2)^(1/85)=2^(-1/85)#

Putting the value of #m_0 and e^k# in (1) we get

#m(t)=801*2^(-t/85)# This is the function.which can also be written in exponential form as

#m(t)=801*e^(-(tlog2)/85)#

Now the amount of radioactive material remains after 10 days will be

#m(10)=801*2^(-10/85)kg=738.3kg#