The funny thing, CTD,
Thank you for correcting your fellow evolutionist. I suppose it's only fair to allow him time to spot & correct some of the mistakes in your post.
is that you also can find this definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HalflifeThe half-life of a quantity whose value decreases with time is the interval required for the quantity to decay to half of its initial value.
And from this you would extrapolate a quarter-life to be the interval required for the quantity to decay to 1/4 of it's initial value. Perhaps the reason that half-life is used is that it works both ways with the same numbers, so you don't end up with confusion of which 1/4 you are talking about.
Curiously, it doesn't matter whether you define it as 1/4 or 3/4, as:
(1) you are still most emphatically, absolutely wrong, and
(2) you still end up with the same decay curve.
Nt = No(e^-λt)
λ is a constant, not dependent on time.
Many things in nature follow this pattern.
Enjoy.
