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

Tritium decays by beta decay and has a half-life of 12.3 years. This means that after each half-life, the amount of tritium in the wine decreases by half.

Let's say the freshly bottled wine has x amount of tritium. Then, the wine in question has 0.6x tritium content.

Using the formula for radioactive decay, we can write:

0.6x = x * (1/2)^(t/12.3)

where t is the time elapsed since the wine was bottled.

Simplifying and solving for t, we get:

t = (log 0.6) / (log 1/2) * 12.3
t = 9.1 yr

Therefore, the estimated age of the wine is 9.1 years.

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