In chemical kinetics, the reaction half-life is the time needed for half of a reactant in a chemical reaction to be depleted. It is the same as the nuclear half-life involved in nuclear decay, which is a first-order reaction.
Famous quotes containing the words reaction and/or life:
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)