But if this experiment is repeated again and again, it will be seen that the atom decays within the half life 50% of the time.
If the atom decayed during the experiment, the cat would die; if not, the cat would live.
What happens to the compound once the atom decays?
On this view, the exact time at which every unstable atom decayed would in fact be fully determined, but by a mechanism of which we were unaware.
A V-type atom decays to state via the emission with and .
These atoms, they report, decayed by emission of alpha-particles to ununtrium in approximately 100 milliseconds.
If the atom has decayed, then the cat's dead.
Even with a quantum cat, death occurs at the instant that the detector notices that the atom has decayed.
The resulting atom of Element 111-272 (with 272 denoting the atomic weight) quickly decayed radioactively to various lighter atoms.
The doubly excited atom spontaneously decays by ejecting one of the excited electrons.