Re: Practical demonstration of a half-life

["Michael C. Baker" <mcbaker@lanl.gov>]

I haven't had the chance to read RADSAFE for a couple of days so perhaps
this has already been suggested.  I once saw an instructor give each of his
students a penny and then have all his students stand up.  They were told
to flip the coin and if they had tails they were to sit down, if they had
heads they remained standing.  The people who had tails had decayed.  You
can then repeat this several times which is very effective in a large
group.  The nice part about this demonstration is that it also portrays the
statistical nature of the process.  Each person has a fixed probability of
decay and on average half the people in the room decay each flip.

Mike
_____________________________________________

Michael C. Baker, Ph.D., P.E.
Environmental Science and Waste Technology Group
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Mail Stop J594, Los Alamos, NM 87545

mcbaker@lanl.gov             

(505) 667-7334 (phone)
(505) 665-8346 (fax)  
(505) 665-9800 ext.1045409 (pager)
_____________________________________________

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