Department of Physics and Astronomy: Publications and Other Research
Date of this Version
October 1966
Abstract
An experiment to simulate radioactive decay is easily performed with a random-number generator or a set of random numbers. The nuclei are imagined to be indexed consecutively. The initial appearance of the index number of a particular nucleus is interpreted as a signal that it has disintegrated. The number of surviving nuclei is an exponential function of the number of draws, and represents the radioactive decay law, with fluctuations. This procedure is a precise realization of the conventional probabilistic derivation of the radioactive decay law if, indeed, the random number generator is truly unbiased.
Comments
Published in American Journal of Physics 34:10 (October 1966), p. 986 . Copyright © 1966 American Association of Physics Teachers. Used by permission.