I’m no physicist, but my understanding is that potential energy is just that: “unused”. So as it approaches the nucleus more and more potential energy is traded for kinetic energy. The potential becomes…actual.
Sorry, after reading Tenebras reply my brain got stuck in that timeframe and your post come through as if it was being read by Groucho Marx. You know, waving a cigar around and lifting the eyebrows suggestively.
This is genius
Can I steal this to use when people ask me stupid questions?
On a Mac, hold down Shift-Option and type the letter A, no ASCII code needed
Yeah, after learning how to do extended set characters on the Mac, Windows’ method seems downright stupid to me.
OK, I know this is too late to help with your exam and all, but…
Working out that whole equation with all the constants was a bit of overkill. YOu’re trying to compare 5 numbers, and they all involve these constants. Since they’re, well, constant, they don’t matter when it comes to comparisons.
- Z(e[sup]2[/sup])/4π (8.854 * 10[sup]-12[/sup])r
Since (e[sup]2[/sup])/4π (8.854 * 10[sup]-12[/sup]) is the same in all 5 numbers, let’s call it… f. All those constants multiplied together, whatever they are, we don’t care. They equal f.
-((number of protons) / (angstroms between the electron and the nucleus)) * f.
For case (a), its -(1/4)f.
For case (b), -(2/4)f.
For case ©, -(1/2)f.
For case (d), -(3/4)f.
For case (e), -(72/10)f.
The case with the lowest potential energy will be the case that requires the most engery to get it up to 0, so you just need to find the one farthest from 0, which in these 5 cases is (e), -7.2.
The hydrogen nucleus has an extremely low number of protons.
Glad to help.
So you’re saying this entire problem boils down to the fact that the gold nucleus has an enormous number of protons?
Yep, that’s pretty much it.
I never asked a professor for help with my homework. Of course we didn’t have e-mail back when I was in school either.
Ok, this is exactly what I thought. Thank you. Of course, you are right, it is too late to help me on the exam, but fortunately, that information would not have been helpful to me anyway. What would have been helpful is a PhD in chemistry, a full lab, and an armada of trained monkeys to help with calculations.
Below please find two comments about my professor, left by students unfortunate enough to take his class in years past, and posted on my school’s own personal version of “Rate Your Professor”:
The worst example [of a mistake/typo on an exam] came up during one of the later exams of the second session when he provided a table of data which did not include the necessary information to solve the problem because he’d copied the wrong stuff. When this was brought to his attention after the TA and class discovered it while going over the test solutions during recitation, did [the professor] throw the question out or give the points to everyone free? No and no. He had the TA grade the question according to “how much it looked like the student would have been able to answer it had the table been correct.” What the hell is that? I felt bad for the TA.
and
This man is well intentioned sometimes- but a very very bad teacher. His tests have nothing to do with either the material taught in class or the book. Our teaching assistant-- who is like in her 3rd yr at Fu COULD NOT DO THE TESTS!! She was very smart and very together and if a teaching assistant cant do the tests-- how is the class expected to be able to do them.
And as I read and re-read all of these comments, and more, before classes started, I have no one to blame but myself - somehow I read these comments, and integrated them into the fiber of my being as indicative of Something to Be Avoided, and yet I completely missed the part where the two worst comments I found were a) about the same professor, and that this b) “same professor” was soon to be “my professor.”
So yeah. I had actually studied really, really well. Despite this little confusion detailed in the above thread, I actually felt like I knew what was going on. I actually felt confidant going into the exam. Now, I am obsessive-compulsively checking to see if they have posted the grades on-line and praying for a merciful curve. Sweet nonstoichiometric Christ in an unbalanced chemical equation, the test was appalling. My only consolation is that everyone else in the class I have talked to feels the same way.
fuck me.
love
yams!!
Too late. I already stole it. And used it. I will loan it to you once I am done with it.