- The student will explore the properties of data with a exponential distribution.
Carbon-14 is a radioactive element with a half-life of about 5730 years.
Carbon-14 is said to decay exponentially. The decay rate is 0.000121 . We start with 1 gram of carbon-14. We are interested in the time (years) it takes to decay carbon-14.
What is being measured here?
Are the data discrete or continuous?
In words, define the Random Variable
X
X
size 12{X} {}
.
X
X
size 12{X} {}
= Time (years) to decay carbon-14
What is the decay rate (
m
m
size 12{m} {}
)?
m
m
size 12{m} {}
= 0.000121
The distribution for
X
X
size 12{X} {}
is:
X
X
size 12{X} {}
~ Exp(0.000121)
Find the amount (percent of 1 gram) of carbon-14 lasting less than 5730 years. This means, find
P
(
X
<
5730
)
P
(
X
<
5730
)
size 12{P \( X<"5730" \) } {}
.
- a. Sketch the graph. Shade the area of interest.
- b. Find the probability.
P
(
X
<
5730
)
P
(
X
<
5730
)
size 12{P \( X<"5730" \) } {}
=
- b.
P
(
X
<
5730
)
P
(
X
<
5730
)
size 12{P \( X<"5730" \) } {}
= 0.5001
Find the percentage of carbon-14 lasting longer than 10,000 years.
- a. Sketch the graph. Shade the area of interest.
- b. Find the probability.
P
(
X
>
10000
)
P
(
X
>
10000
)
size 12{P \( X<"5730" \) } {}
=
- b.
P
(
X
>
10000
)
P
(
X
>
10000
)
size 12{P \( X<"5730" \) } {}
= 0.2982
Thirty percent (30%) of carbon-14 will decay within how many years?
- a. Sketch the graph. Shade the area of interest.
- b. Find the value
k
k
size 12{k} {}
such that
P
(
X
<
k
)
=
0
.
30
P
(
X
<
k
)
=
0
.
30
size 12{P \( X<k \) =0 "." "30"} {}
.
- b.
k
k
size 12{k} {}
= 2947.73
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