Chemistry Music Video 10: One Half Life To Live

A chunk of rock just sits there, underneath the ground
Waiting many eons until it can be found
Its aglow not just with hope, but radioactivity
Its nuclei decaying with regularity!

An ancient scroll lies unsuspected on a desert shore
Dunes surround its resting place, will it lie evermore?
If its found by humans, it will blow their mind
Thanks to carbon-fourteen, its timeless age theyll find!

Half-life is defined, in each and every way
As the time it takes for half the nuclei to decay
From parent nuclei into daughter it will give
And who can know when there is only one half-life to live?

The half-life I-131 is listed at 8 days
So if you have ten grams right now, 5 grams will decay
If you go another eight, youll be left with two point five
Keep cutting it in half for as long as youre alive!

Hop into your time machine to eight days ago
Double the ten grams you had, twenty grams will glow
Go back a further half-life, back to sixteen days
You would have had forty grams of iodine that decays!

Half-life is defined, in each and every way
As the time it takes for half the nuclei to decay
From parent nuclei into daughter it will give
And who can know when there is only one half-life to live?

Flip a coin into the air, watch it as it sails
Will it come up heads, or will it come up tails?
Its just like a nucleus, each isotopes chance is half
To decay in any given half-life, does that make you laugh?

So halve the grams of isotope for each half-life thats gone by
Or double grams for each half-life if in the past it lies
Find how old the rock is, or how ancient is the scroll
Once you find the answer, the story can be told!

Half-life is defined, in each and every way
As the time it takes for half the nuclei to decay
From parent nuclei into daughter it will give
And we can never know when theres one half-life to live!