In this experiment we observe the distribution of radiation emitted by a Cs source. Using a scintillation counter, we count the number of gamma rays emitted by the radiation source at four different mean count rates: 1 sec−1, 4 sec−1, 10 sec−1, and 100 sec−1. From this we can plot the distribution of counts/sec versus the frequency of count rate. We find the distributions for the different mean...

Radioactive decay of an unstable isotope is widely believed to be exponential. This view is supported by experiments on rapidly decaying isotopes but is more difficult to verify for slowly decaying isotopes. The decay of 14C can be calibrated over a period of 12,550 years by comparing radiocarbon dates with dates obtained from dendrochronology. It is well known that this approach shows that rad...

Poisson statistics were studied using the radioactive decay of Cs as a source. A scintillation counter measured gamma rays emitted by Cs as well as background from cosmic rays and other experiments in the laboratory. Data from approximate mean rates of 1, 4, 10 and 100 counts/sec was compared to both theoretical Poisson distributions and Monte Carlo simulations. The reduced chi squared values f...

The result of a long-term experiment is presented and discussed. The experiment aimed at testing the hypothesis that radioactive β-decay might be caused by the omnipresent neutrino flux coming from the sun and other sources, by trying to find a positive correlation between the decay rate of tritium and the annually varying solar neutrino flux, due to the annually changing distance from sun to e...

The ‘radioactive dice’ experiment is a commonly used classroom analogue to model the decay of radioactive nuclei. However, the value of the half-life obtained from this experiment differs significantly from that calculated for real nuclei decaying exponentially with the same decay constant. This article attempts to explain the discrepancy and suggests modifications to the experiment to minimize...