In science how does the half-life work?

Question

please explain need to know i do not under stand... here is an example if you could explain please The half-life of carbon-14 is

5,730 years. How much carbon-

14 would remain after 11,460

years, if any?

Answer 1

3.5. To get this you have to take how long the half life is and for every half life divide the number of carbon in half.

Answer 2

1/4

Answer 3

well since the half-life is 5730 years, you would divide the starting amount (14?) in half, giving you 7. But, that's only taken care of half the time. there are still another 5730 years to account for, so you divide the 7 in half once more, and you end up with 3.5.

hope that wasn't too confusing haha

Answer 4

The answer for your question would be One-Fourth of the original amount.

A Half Life is the amount of time it takes for a substance to decay to half its amount.

A basic example - If you left 2 pounds of sand on your front porch, and it took 24 hours for the wind to blow one pound of sand away, leaving you with one pound of sand left, then the half-life of the sand is equal to 24 hours.

This is all theoretical, of course.

So back to your question - the half life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years. So after 5,730 years, half of the carbon will have decayed. 11,460 is twice as much as 5,730, so 11,460 is two half-lives for carbon.

So in the end you get 1/4 of the original amount.