What is the half -life?

half -life is the amount of time required for half of the substance for disintegration. This measurement is applied to materials that experience exponential disintegration, which means that the rate of disintegration is directly proportional to the amount of substance, which slows down how the substance is exhausted. Half-time is very different-it can be several seconds or millions of years, depending on the stability of the fabric. The concept has an application around the world of science. Imagine that, for example, the element is half -minute. If we start with 20 ounces, five minutes later there are 10 ounces left and only 5 ounces left in five minutes. The disintegration rate slowed down from 2 ounces per minute to 1 ounce per minute, but the half -life is constant after five minutes.

Half-life is perhaps best known in the context of radioactivity. Radioactive "parental" elements are transformed into stable or non -radioactive, "daughter" elements and radiate radiation when they decompose. Knowledge of the daughter element and the half -life of the radioactive element therefore allows the comparison of the parental ratio to the daughter element. This huDA dating is commonly used to determine the age of different entities in our universe, from fossils to meteorites. Carbon-14, the radioactive element present in the living materials on the ground, begins to decompose at the moment of death and can be used to this day when once living materials such as bone and wood.

This measurement is also important in biology, where it shows the amount of time in which half of the given substance is metabolized and/or eliminated by the body. In this sense, the half -life is used in pharmacology to determine the appropriate amount of dosage and interval. In toxicology, it can also be used to determine the effects of toxins in the body over time.