Scientific question(s)

[Soleron]

Rath said:

stof said:
Ok. Here's a general knowledge question about something scientific. Why do we measure Radioactive material by it's half life? Why not the whole life of it's decay? or is its radioactive level generally considered to be within safe limits by the time it's reached it's half life?

Whole life wouldn't work as the decay curve of a radioactive material is an exponential decay curve. Essentially the whole life of a piece of radioactive material tends towards infinity.

So we take the half life because its a finite amount of time. Nothing to do with safety.

Yeah, this. After one half-life half of the material has decayed, after two half-lives thre-quarters has decayed, 3 HLs = 7/8 and so on. There's no set time when all of it would have decayed.