Topic 7 Atomic and Nuclear physics (7.2)
Can radioactive decay be modelled by water flow from a burette?
Name:
Level: Standard
Date: 28.1.10
Time allotted: 2 hours
The following will be assessed:
complete/2
partial/1 not at all/0
Data Collection
and processing
Recording raw data
Processing raw data
Presenting processed data
Conclusion and Evaluation Concluding
Evaluating procedure
Improving the investigation
BACKGROUND
The water flowing out of a burette can be used to simulate radioactive decay providing that
dV = -kV
dt
In words, the rate of flow is proportional to the volume of water remaining
This implies that
V = V0e-kt
where V0 is the volume of water in the burette at t = 0.
Your task is to design and conduct an experiment to test the suggested relationship.