Coin Tosser – Illustrating the De- and Increase of the Radioactive Elements
Channel: Dominik Hezel
Date: 2019-09-02

The radioactive decay can be illustrated by a coin toss: Imagine 1000 coins that are tossed. About half will show head, the others tail. Now assume the coins showing head are the decayed radioactive parent nuclides, then these can be removed. The remaining are tossed again, and again about half will show head, the others tail – and again those showing head are removed, and so on. Th decrease of coins showing heads is equivalent to the radioactive decay. Then imagine dices with n sides instead of coins. After each toss, only dices showing 1 will be removed, i.e., these will be fewer compared to the coin tosses (except when n=2). The number of cube sides n is the equivalent to the decay constant.