"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
Jim Scott wrote:
Chris Bacon wrote:
Jim Scott wrote:
Steve S wrote:
"EricP" wrote :
I was told that the radiation detectors at Sellafield/Windscale
were
sensitive enough to trigger an alarm if somebody went past them
carrying a pack of cigarettes -
Sounds like ******** to me
Do they set it off as well then???

Dunno, but what I want to know is: do cats have eighteen half-lives?
I think you'll find that they have an infinite number!
Not like radioactive substances, then, which don't have an
infinite number.

Where did you learn your atomics then?

Suppose you've got a known number of atoms of something
radioactive. Can the number of half-lives before they
decay to some other substance be infinite?

No. The exponential theory of radioactive decay does not apply to small
numbers of atoms, as it is essentially a statistical theory. With small
numbers the randomness of the decay becomes very apparent.

Steve S