Half-Life Dice Simulation

Experiment Instructions

Half-Life Dice Simulation is a free interactive simulation of radioactive decay for GCSE Physics (Edexcel IGCSE 4PH1). Students roll a tray of dice and remove those showing the dark face, then plot the decay curve to investigate the random nature of radioactive decay and estimate a half-life. No login required.

Aim: To model radioactive decay and estimate a half-life by rolling and removing dice.

Results

Roll Dice remaining Dice decayed this roll

Student prompts

  • Why is the dark face a good model for radioactive decay, even though real nuclei don't roll dice?
  • Roughly how many rolls does it take for the number of dice to fall from 100 to 50? From 50 to 25?
  • Is the number of rolls needed to halve the count always exactly the same? Why not?
  • How would using 20 dice instead of 200 change how smooth your decay curve looks?
  • What single change to the dice would make the "half-life" shorter?