High School

How many coulombs of positive charge are there in 1.48 kg of plutonium, given that its atomic mass is 244 and each plutonium atom has 94 protons?

Answer :

Final answer:

Calculate the number of atoms in 1.48 kg plutonium, multiply that by the charge of a single plutonium atom, to get the total charge in coulombs. Atomic mass is measured in atomic mass units and 1 kg equals 1,000 g. Mass dimensions can be converted to energy dimensions using the equation e=mc^2.

Explanation:

To find the number of coulombs of positive charge in 1.48 kg of plutonium, we first need to calculate the number of plutonium atoms in 1.48 kg. Given that the atomic mass of plutonium is 244 (in atomic mass units), and 1 atomic mass unit is equal to approximately 1.66 x 10^-27 kg, we can determine the amount of atoms by the following conversion: 1.48 kg = 1.48 x 10^3 g = (1.48 x 10^3 g * 1 mol/244 g) * (6.022 x 10^23 atoms/1 mol) which would yield the number of atoms of plutonium.

The charge of an atom is determined by the number of protons, and each proton carries a charge of approximately 1.60 x 10^-19 coulombs. Multiplying the total number of plutonium atoms by the charge carried by a single proton (94 * 1.60 x 10^-19 coulombs/atom), we obtain the total charge in coulombs.

As for the units used, atomic mass is measured in atomic mass units (For example, the atomic mass of plutonium is 244 atomic mass units). When considering the difference between grams and kilograms, 1 kilogram is equal to 1000 grams.

To 'get rid of' mass dimensions we convert them into energy dimensions using Einstein's Energy-Mass equivalence e=mc^2 where e is energy, m is mass and c is the speed of light.

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