Estimate the age of a bottled wine that has a tritium,³H, content 60% that of freshly bottled wine. Tritium decays by beta decay and has a half-life of 12.3 yr.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The amount of tritium remaining in the wine is given by:
N/N0 = (1/2)^(t/T)
where N is the current amount of tritium, N0 is the original amount, t is the time elapsed and T is the half-life of tritium. 
Let x be the age of the bottled wine. Then, we can set up the following equation:
0.6 = (1/2)^(x/12.3)
Taking the ln of both sides and simplifying, we get:
x = 9.1
Therefore, the estimated age of the bottled wine is 9.1 years.

Estimate the Age of a Bottled Wine That Has a Tritium,