The half life of a radioactive substance is 14 days. If 48g of this substance is stored, after how many days will 1.5g of the original substance remain?

Answer Details

The half-life of a radioactive substance is the time taken for the substance to reduce to half of its original quantity. In this case, the half-life of the substance is 14 days, which means that after 14 days, half of the substance would have decayed. Let's calculate how many half-lives are needed for 48g to reduce to 1.5g: 48g → 24g (1 half-life) 24g → 12g (2 half-lives) 12g → 6g (3 half-lives) 6g → 3g (4 half-lives) 3g → 1.5g (5 half-lives) Therefore, it will take 5 half-lives for 48g of the substance to decay to 1.5g. The total time taken for 5 half-lives is 5 x 14 = 70 days. Therefore, after 70 days, 1.5g of the original substance will remain. Hence, the answer is 70 days.