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Half-life (symbol t12) is the time required for a quantity to reduce to half its
initial value.
Half-life is constant over the lifetime of an exponentially decaying quantity,
and it is a characteristic unit for the exponential decay equation.
For example, the medical sciences refer to the biological half-life of drugs
and other chemicals in the human body.
In Physics, half-life is a measure of the stability of a radioactive substance.
 History
The original term, half-life period, dating to Ernest
Rutherford's discovery of the principle in 1907, was
shortened to half-life in the early 1950s.[1] Rutherford
applied the principle of a radioactive element's half-
life to studies of age determination of rocks by
measuring the decay period of radium to lead-206.

"Half-life is the time required for exactly half of the

entities to decay on average". In other words,
the probability of a radioactive atom decaying within
its half-life is 50%.
 Explanation
An exponential decay can be described by any of the following three
equivalent formulas:

Where

N0 is the initial quantity of the substance that will decay (this

quantity may be measured in grams, moles, number of atoms,
etc.),
N(t) is the quantity that still remains and has not yet decayed
after a time t,
t12 is the half-life of the decaying quantity,
is a positive number called the mean lifetime of the decaying
quantity,
is a positive number called the decay constant of the
decaying quantity.
Explanation contd.

Decay constants
 EXAMPLE

The radioactive decay of carbon-14 is exponential

with a half-life of 5,730 years. A quantity of carbon-14
will decay to half of its original amount (on average)
after 5,730 years, regardless of how big or small the
original quantity was
Breeder reactor converts relatively stable uranium 238
into isotopes plutonium 239. after 15 years it is
determined that 0.043% of the initial amount Ao of
plutonium has disintegrated. Find the half life of this
isotope if the rate of disintegration is propotional to
the amount remaining ?

ln A = kt

ln A ln Ao = kt

ln [ ] = kt

ln [
] =

A = Ao
 A(t)=Ao
If 0.043% of the atoms of Ao have disintegrated,
then 99.957% of the substance remains.
To find the decay constant k, we use
0.99957Ao=A(15)
0.99957Ao=Ao
By taking logarithm on both sides
ln 0.99957= ln 15
-0.0004301= 15k
0.0004301
K=
15

K= -0.00002867 (decay contant)

As,
A(t)=Ao 0.00002867 _______ (1)

Now, the half life is the corresponding value of time at which,

1
A(t)= _______ (2)
2
Compare eq (1) and (2), we get

1
= 0.00002867
2
1
= 0.00002867
2
Taking logarithm on both sides,
1
ln = ln 0.00002867
2
-0.6395=-0.00002867t
0.6395
t=
0.00002867

t=22,305 years
So, the half life of plutonium is
22,305 years
Use an appropriate first order differential equation to
find the percentage of a given quantity of radium
which disintegrates after 100 years if we are told that
the half life of radium is 1600 years.
Dy/dx=-ky
All solutions of this equation are of the form
f(t) = f(0)e^-kt
We are given that,
F(1600)= __________ (1)
Therefore,
F(t)=e^-kt ___________(2)
Comparing eq (1) and (2),
e^-1600k=1/2
Taking log on both sides,
ln e^-1600k=ln
-1600k=-0.693
K= 0.693/1600
K=0.000433
As we need quantity of radium disintegrated after 100 years
f(100) = k x 100
= 0.000433 x 100
= 0.0433
Quantity of radium disintegrated after 100 years =
0.0433
Thus the percentage of radium disintegrated
after 100 years is
= 0.0433 x 100%
= 4.3%