An element with mass 730 grams decays by 28.8% per minute. How much of the element is remaining after 10 minutes, to the nearest 10th of a gram?

Answer 1

This is an example of exponential decay. After each minute, the remaining mass is (100 - 28.8)% of the mass at the start of the minute, which is 0.712 times the amount at the start. The exponential decay law for this problem is

m(n) = m₀ (0.712)ⁿ

m₀ = 730 g

n = minutes elapsed from when the mass was m₀

m(n) = 730 (0.712)ⁿ

Now plug in n=10 minutes, evaluate m(10), and finish from here.

m(10) = ?

Answer 2

After 10 minutes of degradation, only 24.4 grams is left. Its similar to doing 71.2 percent of 730 grams 10 times