Radioactive decay follows an exponential decay law. If at t=0 there are A particles, their number, x, will vary as a function of time according to...

b)  Plot the number of particles against time. You should see an exponential decay curve.

c) d)

e)

To check if the decay really is exponential, take the logarithm of the number of particles and see if the plot against time gives a straight line.

Use the function []=polyfit() to fit a straight line to the log data. (You can use the help files to get more information) In your script, construct an appropriate vector to show the resulting best fit curve on the log plot. Comment on the goodness of fit.

Use the gradient of your best fit line to estimate λ and plot the curve x=Ae-λt against the experimental data. Comment on whether it provides a good fit to the data.