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Lab 10 — Radioactive Decay (04/21/2025)


[1] Announcements

  1. Last lab today — please watch your email in case any grading issues come up.
  2. Please leave feedback, it helps me get a job :)

 


[2] Lab Manuals

  • Lab 10 Manual (also in Canvas > Files) — do NOT copy this entire thing into your lab report!!!

Here's a useful online calculate for various calculations: Desmos (Scientific)

 


[3] Today's Instructions

FOR EMERGENCIES, CONTACT ME DIRECTLY: 201-682-5990

Copy of my email, in case you didn't receive it:

Hi all,

Apologies for the late notice, we'll be starting class ~30-45 minutes late today. However, I've left the lab door open in case you want to arrive at 7:30PM and start early.

Today's lab is a bit silly in my opinion, you sit and do nothing while a geiger counter collects data for 30 minutes. Therefore I've collected the date myself for you, which should make it significantly faster for you to complete the lab. I will post the data very soon at the bottom of this page: https://rentry.co/phy206_19_lab10

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Zain


Today's lab has two parts ("A" and "B"). In both parts, you load a pretty basic sample into a geiger counter, collect the radioactive decay counts for some period of time, and then fit a curve to the results. For part A you collect data for 5 minutes, for part B it's 30 minutes. There's not much you can do in the meantime.

In my opinion, this is silly. Therefore I will give you the data right away so you can skip right to the analysis (no need to use any of the equipment, unless you really want to).

You may analyze this data with Google Sheets (recommended), programming tools such as Python (try using Google Colab and ChatGPT), or importing to Logger Pro.

  1. Part A data
  2. Part B data

Bonus (optional, once you're done): reference these more in-depth analysis of the solid/long-lived and liquid/short-lived radioactive samples, play around with the code, and compare with your results:

If "files.catbox" isn't working, look here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IuUWurjAANF6B01mIUjbV6yO6VkCajpN?usp=sharing

 


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Pub: 21 Apr 2025 23:08 UTC

Edit: 22 Apr 2025 00:06 UTC

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