Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
A Geiger counter, sometimes called Geiger-Mueller or G-M Counter: The counter is based on an air-tight tube filled with argon and with a large voltage (500 – 1500 volts) between a cathode (the wall of the tube) and an anode (a wire down the center). When a high-energy particle goes into the argon, it ionizes some of it and there is a breakdown between the cathode and anode that we pick up as a voltage spike and count – or amplify and hear as a “tick.” How our experiment works: You are going to measure the half-life of protactinium 234. This is a beta-emitting decay product in the decay of uranium-238; part of the series is given above: The protactinium-234 is extracted almost completely by an organic solvent, such as amyl acetate, from an acidified aqueous solution of uranyl nitrate (which contains proportionally, 1g uranyl nitrate, to 3 cm3 water, to 7 cm3 concentrated hydrochloric acid). Only the high-energy beta particles from the decay of protactinium-234 are detected by a G-M tube.