Science Final Flashcards
True or False: Laser enrichment is a method of using lasers to separate isotopes of uranium.
True
True or False: The difference between nuclear reactions and chemical reactions is that nuclear reactions form new atoms.
True
True or False: If you want to create a plasma, you must superheat electrons.
True
What isotope is not a product of uranium fission but still is produced in nuclear reactors?
plutonium-239
Philip Lenard’s experimentation with the photoelectric effect found that electrons did not
gain kinetic energy as the intensity of the light increased
True or False: A wave packet can be a solution to the Schrodinger equation.
True
Why would a developing country with no nuclear weapons have felt offended by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
The treaty claimed they were not allowed to develop nuclear weapons even though the countries that had them got to keep them.
What element did J.J. Thomson find had a mass 1,800 times larger than that of a cathode ray particle?
hydrogen
True or False: The detonation of the USSR’s first nuclear bomb and the detonation of its first hydrogen bomb were both in the month of August.
True
What principle did Niels Bohr propose?
the correspondence principle
If scientists discovered a new substance named “radioactive aether”, it would most likely be an
invisible gas that emits alpha particles
What concept did Max Planck propose in 1900?
The quantum
What characteristic distinguishes gamma ray photons from other photons?
higher energy levels
Approximately how many becquerels comprise one curie?
10^10
Radio waves, x-rays, and visible light are all
part of the electromagnetic spectrum
What condition must be met in order for a wave to fit around the circumference of a circle?
The wave must have a whole number of wavelengths.
If you could increase the critical mass of uranium-235, what consequence would most likely result for scientists trying to create a uranium fission bomb?
They would need to obtain more uranium-235
What Manhattan Project program did Robert Oppenheimer lead?
Project Y
A photon passing by an excited atom will most likely cause the atom to
emit a photon
What ratio of atomic mass number to atomic number does the most common hydrogen isotope have?
1:1
What function does a scintillation counter serve?
radioactivity detecter
A critical nuclear reaction is defined as a nuclear reaction that
induces a constant chain reaction
True or False: Isotopes of the same element correspond with the same location on the periodic table.
True
True or False: Alpha particles tend to leave nuclei with high levels of energy.
True
For what process is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor intended?
magnetic confinement fusion
Why are we unable to know the state of Schrodinger’s cat inside the closed box?
We cannot take measurement when the box is closed
After the sixtieth element on the periodic table, elements become less
stable
What form of radiation is most common in cancer therapy?
gamma
Niels Bohr proposed that the frequency of an electron’s radiation after it has undergone an energy level transition can be found from Planck’s constant and the
change in the electron’s energy
True or False: After WWII, media felt that the potential uses for atomic power were boundless.
True
If you traveled back in time to describe nuclear fusion to Aristotle, he would most likely disbelieve you on the grounds that
atoms did not exist
What function do boron rods perform in nuclear reactors?
They absorb neutrons
What term refers to an isotope that existed at Earth’s formation?
a primordial isotope
Why do alpha, beta, and gamma radiation have fundamentally different properties?
they contain different particles
What fuel did the “gadget” nuclear bomb use?
plutonium
Approximately how much time passed between the construction of the world’s first and second man-made nuclear reactors?
11 months
What characteristic of neutrons makes them the best “bullets” for inciting nuclear reactions?
They have no charge
What statement best describes quantum theory before 1925?
It lacked a unifying mathematical foundation
What term refers to physicists’ method of cooling atoms?
Doppler cooling
The most current model of the atom describes electrons’ motions as
wave functions
the “238” in “uranium-238” refers to its
mass number
In the formula describing radioactive decay, the symbol λ represents the
decay constant
Approximately what percent of matter do nuclear fission reactions convert into energy?
0.1%
True or False: The bombs “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” were detonated over different countries.
False
Both protons and neutrons have
magnetic movement
How many years after the end of WWII did Edward Teller finish his design for a hydrogen bomb?
6 years
Approximately how many atoms high was the Trinity test’s mushroom cloud (if 1 mile equals approximately 1609 meters)?
10^14
True or False: Plato believed that different types of matter had different building blocks.
True
