Radiometric Dating: Finding the Age of the Earth
Question 2. Suppose that in an isotope system, the parent decays into the daughter, and there was no daughter atoms present initially. What is the ratio of daughter atoms to parent atoms at time t? |
Solution: First, solve the basic decay equation for P0,
Now let D(t) denote the number of daughter atoms at time t. The number of daughter atoms at time t is equal to the number of parent atoms present initially minus the number of parent atoms at time t, so
