1. How can you determine the activity of a radioactive source?
2. Do you expect efficiency to be good or bad for each of your sources? (Consider real-world effects)
3. Is the efficiency you calculated for each isotope valid only for that isotope?Explain your answer.
4. If a different shelf is used, will the efficiency change? Explain your answer.
5. The radius of the GM tube's window is 3.5 cm. The source is 3 cm from the GM tube. Compare the surface area of a sphere 3 cm from the source to the area of the GM tube's window. (Hint: find the ratio) How is this related to this experiment? Can this tell you if your results are reasonable?
6. For the two different run times, are the efficiencies different? How different?Why?
7. List the formulas for finding the means and standard deviations for the Poisson and Gaussian distribution.
8. Name the natural sources and human-made sources of background radiation.
9. Approximately how much background radiation dose is received by an average person per year?