In the half-life of barium-137m graph, the results tended to lose activity as time progresses, indicating that barium-137m was undergoing a decay process. Initially, barium-137m had an activity of 4264 CPM (5 seconds in). After approximately five minutes, the activity had dropped to 1092 CPM, and after 10 minutes, the activity had dropped to 318 CPM. The radical changes between 4264 CPM and 1092 CPM compared to the changes from 1092 CPM to 318 CPM indicated exponentially decreasing activity. This is systematic with that of radioactive decay.
Since this is radioactive decay, using the exponentially trend line on the Half-life of Barium-137m graph, the half-life can be determined. Taking the initial point (4264 CPM, at 5 seconds) and the point …show more content…
Additionally, the potential presence of tiny amounts of Cesium-137 molecules undergoing beta decay in the sample, impacts the validity of the experimental half-life, to a small degree. One of the most considerable errors, was not starting the experiment immediately after the separation of the Ba++ and Cs+ cations, due to complications in data analysis. Although this, along with the unreliability of human dependent time keeping, could have been avoided by digitally recording the experiment for later analysis, in order to remove the errors caused by reaction time and false analysis. The experiment was conducted over a period of 10 minutes in order to find a far more precise and accurate trend of radioactive decay. However some of the results that were included were outliers, which means that they should’ve either been left out, or a second, identical experiment should have been conducted. If an identical experiment would have been conducted, the average mean could have been found enabling far more accurate results and thus the experimental half-life would have a lower percentage error, in comparison to the theoretical half-life. Additionally since the half-life of any radioisotope is a constant; temperature and pressure were not controlled. However the experiment was conducted at room temperature, and at standard atmospheric pressure, at the time of recording the activity of
Since this is radioactive decay, using the exponentially trend line on the Half-life of Barium-137m graph, the half-life can be determined. Taking the initial point (4264 CPM, at 5 seconds) and the point …show more content…
Additionally, the potential presence of tiny amounts of Cesium-137 molecules undergoing beta decay in the sample, impacts the validity of the experimental half-life, to a small degree. One of the most considerable errors, was not starting the experiment immediately after the separation of the Ba++ and Cs+ cations, due to complications in data analysis. Although this, along with the unreliability of human dependent time keeping, could have been avoided by digitally recording the experiment for later analysis, in order to remove the errors caused by reaction time and false analysis. The experiment was conducted over a period of 10 minutes in order to find a far more precise and accurate trend of radioactive decay. However some of the results that were included were outliers, which means that they should’ve either been left out, or a second, identical experiment should have been conducted. If an identical experiment would have been conducted, the average mean could have been found enabling far more accurate results and thus the experimental half-life would have a lower percentage error, in comparison to the theoretical half-life. Additionally since the half-life of any radioisotope is a constant; temperature and pressure were not controlled. However the experiment was conducted at room temperature, and at standard atmospheric pressure, at the time of recording the activity of