You are assisting in an anthropology lab over the summer by carrying out 14C dating. A graduate student found a bone he believes to be 20,000 years old. You extract the carbon from the bone and prepare an equal-mass sample of carbon from modern organic material. To determine the activity of a sample with the accuracy your supervisor demands, you need to measure the time it takes for 10,000 decays to occur.a. The activity of the modern sample is 1.06 Bq. How long does that measurement take?b. It turns out that the graduate student’s estimate of the bone’s age was accurate. How long does it take to measure the activity of the ancient carbon?
Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is a type of nuclear reaction. In nuclear fusion, two or more than two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus. During this process, an enormous amount of energy is released. This energy is called nuclear energy. Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the sun and stars.
Fusion Bomb
A fusion bomb is also known as a thermonuclear bomb or hydrogen bomb which releases a large amount of explosive energy during a nuclear chain reaction when the lighter nuclei in it, combine to form heavier nuclei, and a large amount of radiation is released. It is an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction where isotopes of hydrogen combine under very high temperature to form helium. They work on the principle of operation of atomic fusion. The isotopes of Hydrogen are deuterium and tritium, where they combine their masses and have greater mass than the product nuclei, get heated at high temperatures, and releases energy.
You are assisting in an anthropology lab over the summer by carrying out 14C dating. A graduate student found a bone he believes to be 20,000 years old. You extract the carbon from the bone and prepare an equal-mass sample of carbon from modern organic material. To determine the activity of a sample with the accuracy your supervisor demands, you need to measure the time it takes for 10,000 decays to occur.
a. The activity of the modern sample is 1.06 Bq. How long does that measurement take?
b. It turns out that the graduate student’s estimate of the bone’s age was accurate. How long does it take to measure the activity of the ancient carbon?
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