Why is Half-Life called Half-Life?

[Rumik]

Hey everyone,

sorry if this has beeen asked before, as I'm sure it has, and sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but why does Half-Life have its title? What is it referring to? Anyone have any facts?

Cheers

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Hey everyone,

sorry if this has beeen asked before, as I'm sure it has, and sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but why does Half-Life have its title? What is it referring to? Anyone have any facts?

Cheers

It refers to a scientific term, just like opposing force and blue shift, and surface tension. The half-life of any radioactive material is the time it takes for the radiation dosage to reduce in strength by half.


I think, I may be wrong?

 

[CyberPitz]

It refers to a scientific term, just like opposing force and blue shift, and surface tension. The half-life of any radioactive material is the time it takes for the radiation dosage to reduce in strength by half.


I think, I may be wrong?

Close enough imo

 

[Washuu]

You probably have the best answer.

And the half-life logo, is the lamda symbol, which deals with wavelength, if anyone wanted to know that.

 

[Dead-Inside]

It actually has several meanings (The symbol and Half-Life) from what I've heard. All very logical and, involved with the story theme.

 

[Lanthanide]

Yeah, but surely there's more of a reason than that?

Opposing Force: magnets and the law of gravity, also happens to be on the "opposing" side of Freeman - the marines.

Blue Shift - Barney wears the blue uniform and is on the 'blue shift', also the doppler affect on light.

Surface Tension - you're crawling across the surface levels, advancing slowly, it's very tense because you don't have heaps of ammo and there are lots of ambush spots for the enemy. Also obviously the surface tension on water etc.

Half Life - lambda symbol for the half-life of a radioactive element. The lambda core was called Lambda Core, but there's no reason it couldn't have been called anything else in the game. So why exactly was Half Life chosen? There has to be more than a reason just "because the lambda = half life".

 

[phatman]

The time required for half of the atoms in any given quantity of a radioactive isotope to decay is the half-life of that isotope. Each particular isotope has its own half-life. For example, the half-life of 238U is 4.5 billion years. That is, in 4.5 billion years, half of the 238U on Earth will have decayed into other elements. In another 4.5 billion years, half of the remaining 238U will have decayed. One fourth of the original material will remain on Earth after 9 billion years. The half-life of 14C is 5730 years, thus it is useful for dating archaeological material. Nuclear half-lives range from tiny fractions of a second to many, many times the age of the universe. :dozey: :thumbs:

 

[tommy1987]

oright, oright! :rolling:

 

[R3al1ty]

all well and good, but like the original poster asked, why is the game called HL? :frog:

<startGManVoice>Interesting that a half life is a measure of TIME</endGManVoice>

 

[phatman]

all well and good, but like the original poster asked, why is the game called HL? :frog:

<startGManVoice>Interesting that a half life is a measure of TIME</endGManVoice>

Haha, Im going.

 

[cojawfee]

Opposing force is called that because it is the force you are up against in HL. Also, in the military, in training one group (could be a squad, platoon, whatever) plays the OpFor, or opposing force.

 

[hl2slet]

My guess on it would be that you only having a half life.Evertime there is trouple you are getting out and doing all the work but you dont get the other half of you life that is holydays and things like that.Becouse that G-man is setting you in that dark room.

 

[frances_farmer]

according to Raising The Bar, it was called Half-Life simply because it was a cool sounding science term. nothing more, nothing less. they did at one point think of calling it Half-Dead.

 

[Sgt. Duffy]

Yeah, but surely there's more of a reason than that?

Opposing Force: magnets and the law of gravity, also happens to be on the "opposing" side of Freeman - the marines.

Blue Shift - Barney wears the blue uniform and is on the 'blue shift', also the doppler affect on light.

Surface Tension - you're crawling across the surface levels, advancing slowly, it's very tense because you don't have heaps of ammo and there are lots of ambush spots for the enemy. Also obviously the surface tension on water etc.

Half Life - lambda symbol for the half-life of a radioactive element. The lambda core was called Lambda Core, but there's no reason it couldn't have been called anything else in the game. So why exactly was Half Life chosen? There has to be more than a reason just "because the lambda = half life".

There was a Half Life: Surface Tension?! Gimme a link!

 

[ScRaTcH-A-HoLiC]

according to Raising The Bar, it was called Half-Life simply because it was a cool sounding science term. nothing more, nothing less. they did at one point think of calling it Half-Dead.

Sounds logical... I guess..

 

[Krabjuice]

Surface tension was merely the level where the marines pulled out everything they had to kill Gordon.. it was also when you managed to get out of black mesa's interior complex, and venture outside..

 

[AJ Rimmer]

There was a Half Life: Surface Tension?! Gimme a link!

Surface Tension is the name of a chapter in Half-life