Lab #8 – Radioactive Soup
Go to the grocery store and get yourself a one-pound bag of dried beans; bigger beans are better because there are fewer. Grab the biggest pot you have available and find a way to put a line down the middle of the bottom of the pot (tape is probably best but anything that can be removed completely when you’re done is okay).
1) Put the pot on a flat surface.
2) Count the beans.
3) Dump the beans into the pot from a foot or two above the pot.
4) Remove the beans from one side of your tape and put them aside (perhaps later you can make soup)
5) Count the beans remaining in the pot.
6) Remove the beans you just counted and dump them back into the pot again.
7) Again remove the beans from one side of your tape and put them aside.
8) Count the beans remaining in the pot.
etc. etc. etc. Keep dumping and removing from one side of the pot and counting those that remain until you have less than three beans left.
How is this bean exercise related to radioactive decay?
Your Lab Report should include of a statement of what you expected to happen (the hypothesis), a detailed descriiption of what you did, and a listing of your observations and conclusions.
