Timeline for Is there a way to reconstruct a "full-life" from a "half-life" of a decomposing piece of waste?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 28, 2021 at 14:34 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @SergeyZolotarev Not really. It's numerically the same. | |
| Dec 28, 2021 at 13:42 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | Do you have anything to say about the way your formula was altered? | |
| Dec 22, 2021 at 5:23 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @SergeyZolotarev I don't know that in depth. What I described is just the generic equation and definition for half-life irrespective of the specific topic. I don't think organic decomposition is statistical though but the concept of time constants does not need to be statistical nor does it need to be 1/2. For example, RC time in electrical circuits are not statistical and follow 1/e, rather than 1/2. | |
| Dec 22, 2021 at 5:22 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | @DKNguyen Can you provide me with a paper that supports the notion that that nuclear decay formula applies to organic decomposition too? They work differently, and maybe you deconstruct "full-lives" for organic stuff differently too | |
| Dec 22, 2021 at 0:50 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | @J.G. it's ridiculously complex for me, I don't understand it at all. And, by the way, the rate of biological decomposition is not constant with time, unlike nuclear decay, so maybe all of it doesn't apply here much | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 10:13 | history | edited | J.G. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Made half-life/mean lifetime notation more standard
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| Dec 21, 2021 at 10:12 | comment | added | J.G. | @SergeyZolotarev In terms of whether the decay lifetime is really infinite, that's discusssed here. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:57 | comment | added | DKNguyen | Oh, yeah. I used 10% in my 3.32 half life calculation. Not 1% like you asked. Yes 6.64 time constants for 1% | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:49 | vote | accept | Sergey Zolotarev | ||
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:49 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | Does it take 66 years (ibb.co/BykqVHY)? Are you kidding me? It's insane | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:44 | comment | added | DKNguyen | What you wrote earlier is correct | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:44 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | So what and how should I type in? Guide me through please | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:38 | comment | added | DKNguyen | Oh, that's what you mean. See edits. It can be an absolute or percentage amount since they just cancel out to a fraction anyways when dividing by both sides. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:37 | history | edited | DKNguyen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:36 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | Well, I don't understand your explanation. You never explained what A or Ao is, for one thing. Is it a percentage of decomposing matter? Should my phone solve this then: 0,01=1*0,5^(t/10) (if we take the half-life of ten years)? | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:30 | comment | added | DKNguyen | I already explained that in the last sentence of the post. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:29 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | Thankfully, I have a cell phone that can do logarithms for me. Just show me how your formula works please | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:23 | history | edited | DKNguyen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:20 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @SergeyZolotarev You need logarithms to solve for the exponent. Set $A = 0.1A_o$ Solve for t in terms of $\tau$. Also no negative on the exponent. My error. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:19 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | Could you provide me with your calculation? I don't think I understand your formula | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:13 | comment | added | Toby Mak | For the mathematical details: Central Limit Theorem for exponential distribution | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:11 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @TobyMak Yes, half-life is statistical. 3.32 half-life time constants for 90% reduction. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:10 | comment | added | Toby Mak | The behaviour of large numbers of particles is predictable (through statistical processes such as the central limit theorem). Conversely, the behaviour of one particle is totally random, so it's impossible to predict when that last particle will decay to zero. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:07 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @SergeyZolotarev Well it's mathematically like that. In reality there are only finite number of molecules but there are a great number of them so you can keep subdividing very far so it would take a very long time until you get 4, then 2, then 1, then zero. | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:06 | comment | added | Sergey Zolotarev | It's interesting because I would never imagine that paper can decompose infinitely. Suppose, the percentage is 99% (it's as good as 100%). What would it come to? | |
| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:06 | history | edited | DKNguyen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 21, 2021 at 3:00 | history | answered | DKNguyen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |