Are the nucleons fundamental particles, or do they consist of still smaller parts? One way to find out is to probe a nucleon just as Rutherford probed an atom. What should be the kinetic energy of an electron for it to be able to probe a nucleon? Assume the diameter of a nucleon to be approximately 10^–15 m.

Question

Are the nucleons fundamental particles, or do they consist of still smaller parts? One way to find out is to probe a nucleon just as Rutherford probed an atom. What should be the kinetic energy of an electron for it to be able to probe a nucleon? Assume the diameter of a nucleon to be approximately 10^–15 m.

Philoid · Accepted Answer

Given

The diameter of the nucleons =

Formula used

The equation of photon energy: The energy that a single photon carries; is proportional to the product of Planck’s constant and frequency of the photon. The formula is

where

E is the energy of the electron travelling, c is the speed of light = h is the planks constant =. is the frequency. is the wavelength of the photon.

Explanation

To find if the fundamental particles of an atom are nucleons (neutron and protons) or not, we will use the same method as Rutherford used to probe and atom. According to Rutherford model, Rutherford bombarded a gold foil with alpha particles to check if the alpha particle goes through it but instead at the center it deflected stating a positive source of energy, later known as nucleus was found. Now, if the bombarding element in our case is an electron and the object on which it falls is nucleus. Then the energy required by electron to probe the nucleus will become the Kinetic Energy of the electron. To show the Kinetic energy we will use the photon energy equation

Placing the value of

As the energy is produced by the kinetic energy of an electron, the energy produced is

Therefore, the Kinetic Energy of the electron needed to probe the nucleus is.