In particle decay, is there a difference when they say "average lifetime" vs "half life"? Also: in the Large Hadron Collider, how long does a particle collision event (or experiment) last?
In particle decay, is there a difference when they say "average lifetime" vs "half life"? Also: in the Large Hadron Collider, how long does a particle collision event (or experiment) last?
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“Average” is ambiguous—it could mean arithmetic mean, geometric mean, median, mode, etc.
The half-life is equivalent to the median lifetime, but the name is more self-explanatory (and emphasizes that half the radiation is still there).
"Average" and "median" are not the same thing. Anyone who uses those about the same thing have misunderstood the concepts.
6 comments