High School

The half-life of [tex]^{11}\text{C}[/tex] is 20.3 minutes. What percentage of a sample will have decayed after 1.69 hours?

Answer :

Final answer:

To find the percentage of decayed sample, divide the total time by the half-life to determine the number of half-lives, and then calculate the percentage of decay based on the number of half-lives.

Explanation:

To find the percentage of a sample that will have decayed after a certain time, we need to determine how many half-lives have passed. In this case, we are given that the half-life of 11C is 20.3 minutes, and we want to know the percentage decay after 1.69 hours (which is 101.4 minutes).

Since the half-life is 20.3 minutes, we can divide 101.4 minutes by 20.3 minutes to find the number of half-lives. This gives us 5 half-lives.

Each half-life corresponds to a decay of 50% of the original sample. Since 5 half-lives have passed, the percentage of the sample that will have decayed is 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% = 3.1%.

Learn more about radioactive decay here:

https://brainly.com/question/1770619

#SPJ11