- #1
wrongg
- 1
- 0
I'd like to just preface this by saying I'm a non-science major in a science course. The professor mentioned we might need another textbook besides the ones for this particular class. Unlike all of the science/engi majors in the class, I don't have it.
Using the Boltzmann factor estimate the probability that a proton in a gas of temperature 1e7 will have 1 MeV of energy.
P(E)=(1/Z)exp(-E/kT)
My problem with this is I don't know how to obtain a value for the partition function Z. My first idea was to isolate Z and solve for a ratio of two energy levels, but that obviously didn't work since I didn't have any probabilities to work with. My next idea was to plug in absolute zero for temperature and assume that the probability of an atom in the ground state was 1. This failed because of the temperature factor in the denominator of the exponential term. There's nothing really complex to this problem, I just don't know how to solve for Z, and I'm sure it's assumed knowledge for anyone who's had a proper thermo class. Any help is appreciated.
Homework Statement
Using the Boltzmann factor estimate the probability that a proton in a gas of temperature 1e7 will have 1 MeV of energy.
Homework Equations
P(E)=(1/Z)exp(-E/kT)
The Attempt at a Solution
My problem with this is I don't know how to obtain a value for the partition function Z. My first idea was to isolate Z and solve for a ratio of two energy levels, but that obviously didn't work since I didn't have any probabilities to work with. My next idea was to plug in absolute zero for temperature and assume that the probability of an atom in the ground state was 1. This failed because of the temperature factor in the denominator of the exponential term. There's nothing really complex to this problem, I just don't know how to solve for Z, and I'm sure it's assumed knowledge for anyone who's had a proper thermo class. Any help is appreciated.