Currently doing Nuclear physics this semester and have a whole booklet of questions for homework and what little spare class time we have.

 

Stuck on 1 of them, dont understand how im meant to get the answer (which ill put in brackets after the question.) Also, ill write the isotopes with the atomic number before the element then the mass number after it... couldnt find the sub/super script buttons

 

A Sulfur nucleus 33S16 disintegrates by ejecting a proton 1H1, leaving behind a phosphorus necleus 32P15. If 9.24MeV energy is liberated as kinetic energy that drives the two fragments apart, how much of the energy goes into each particle? (Answer - 8.661MeV for proton and 0.289MeV for the nuclide formed.)

 

Cheers any help would be appreciated.

Crozius

sub and super script [ sub ] [ /sub ] and [ sup ] [ /sup ] without the spaces

 

This is fundamentally a classical mechanics questions.

 

So the first question you must ask yourself is what is conserved, obviously energy, but you've had more of that put in, so momentum as well...

 

So before you have 0 momentum. afterwards you need to have 0 net momentum. So using this and knowing what the total kinetic energy aftewards is you should be able to calculate the answer... You might need to find velocities first...