Appendix F

Half-Life

The half-life is defined as the time it takes for a quantity to be reduced by one half its initial value.

An important process is one where the rate of change of the amount of a quantity is proportional to the amount that exists. The interest accrued from a bank account, no matter how paltry, is an example of such a process. Consider the rate of accumulation from interest for an account with $100 versus $1 million.

This phenomenon can be characterized by a simple differential equation as follows:

si1_e

The proportionality constant is specified in terms of a process-related rate constant denoted by the Greek letter lambda (λ).

The solution ...

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