The half-life of a radioisotope is 6.0 hours. Approximately how long will it take for the activity of a sample to be reduced by
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Answer:
electrons
Explanation:
The magnitude of the electric field outside an electrically charged sphere is given by the equation
where
k is the Coulomb's constant
Q is the charge stored on the sphere
r is the distance (from the centre of the sphere) at which the field is calculated
In this problem, the cloud is assumed to be a charged sphere, so we have:
is the maximum electric field strength tolerated by the air before breakdown occurs
is the radius of the sphere
Re-arranging the equation for Q, we find the maximum charge that can be stored on the cloud:
Assuming that the cloud is negatively charged, then
And since the charge of one electron is
The number of excess electrons on the cloud is