Author Topic: Our members... (Read 12911 times)

M0T · « **Reply #25 on:** 2001-10-06 09:14:00 »

Since I dont know what calculus is I can't answer you trilinear.
we learnt about Half lifes in Chemistry, but the next week I had the flu so I know nothing about them.

CS is the best multiplayer game ever, that takes place on a pc at any rate

Alhexx · « **Reply #26 on:** 2001-10-06 09:58:00 »

Yep, CS is great, but it takes more resources than Half-Life. On my PII 266, which is in a LAN with Yuki's PC, it takes 'bout 7 minutes to load

And then it crashes... whhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

- Alhexx

- edit -
Hm, my Avatar looks kinda squished...I'll have to upload a 60x60 version...

[edited] 169 2001-10-06 11:00

chowderhead · « **Reply #27 on:** 2001-10-06 12:31:00 »

I only stayed in long enough to make it through pre-calc, so I never had the pleasure of half-lives. I think I'm glad about that.

Nice to see we can still keep on topic, just like the old forum!

Darkness · « **Reply #28 on:** 2001-10-06 15:26:00 »

isotopes can never lose all of their radioactivity, because radioactivity decreases as an exponential function.

Qhimm · « **Reply #29 on:** 2001-10-06 15:34:00 »

Then again, as you come down to the last radioactive atom, what happens when when it finally comes apart?

The SaiNt · « **Reply #30 on:** 2001-10-06 17:09:00 »

Actually they do reach a stabilized point at some place.
All the stable elements we have today were radioactive ones a long long time ago.
Of course, some never get a chance to stabilize cause the final amount of neutrons = nothing

Alhexx · « **Reply #31 on:** 2001-10-06 19:43:00 »

That seems to get damn complicated

- Alhexx

Darkness · « **Reply #32 on:** 2001-10-06 22:05:00 »

qhimm> wouldnt that cause some huge release of energy?

ficedula · « **Reply #33 on:** 2001-10-06 22:29:00 »

Darkness: Umm, no.

If something has a halflife of 1 year, what that means is that any given atom has a 50% chance of decaying over the period of a year.

So, given the amount of atoms in even a tiny sample of substance, over 1 year the laws of chance dictate that you're practically certain to get very nearly 50% of the substance decaying.

Eventually you'll get down to one atom ... then, there's a 50% chance that the atom will decay within one year and there'll be no original substance left.

If it doesn't ... well, 50% chance it'll decay the year after that

And so on...it COULD last forever, but it aint likely.

Mathematically speaking, if you LITERALLY halved something, you might have to split an atom, but a half life isn't a literal, exact, halving of the substance ... it's an approximation; but given the number of atoms you're dealing with it tends to average out to almost exactly 50%.

Darkness · « **Reply #34 on:** 2001-10-07 07:10:00 »

i never really thought of it as chance. I just thought of it as a constant function.

ficedula · « **Reply #35 on:** 2001-10-07 14:31:00 »

Nah, it's chance. Lots of things are. It's just that with billions of particles, it all averages out so you can pretty much take it as constant, although it isn't exactly.

The SaiNt · « **Reply #36 on:** 2001-10-07 14:59:00 »

Quote

On 2001-10-07 03:10, Darkness wrote:
i never really thought of it as chance. I just thought of it as a constant function.

Ever heard of the Chaos Theory?

Darkness · « **Reply #37 on:** 2001-10-07 18:52:00 »

Saint> Ohhhhhh Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhh........ Ok, forget everything that I said.