日常生活中的科学
Why can't we predict when one nucleus will decay?
After three half-lives, an ideal radioactive population has one eighth of its initial undecayed nuclei remaining.
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简短答案
After three half-lives, an ideal radioactive population has one eighth of its initial undecayed nuclei remaining.
真正发生了什么？
A half-life does not mean every nucleus survives exactly that long; it is a statistical property of a population.
一个有用的直观图景
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Radioactive decay is probabilistic for an individual nucleus. Half-life describes the statistical behaviour of a large population, not a countdown timer attached to each atom.