How much Energy exacltly is an MeV?

[EinsteinII]

Hi Readers,

Can anybody just tell me how much energy really 1MeV will be? Curious to know because seen a lot of powerful things like cars, tools, heavy machinery, jet engines, laser cutters and i have an idea of their power in terms of respective units. Wondering how much energy will 1MeV really carry? Please make me understand in simple way!

 

[Doc Al]

1 MeV = 10⁶ eV = 1.6 x 10^-13 Joules. Not so much, but then again, elementary particles are rather small. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_volt"

For comparision: If a one pound object falls about one foot, it would gain about 1.4 Joules of energy.

 

[Bob_for_short]

Hi Readers,

Can anybody just tell me how much energy really 1MeV will be? Curious to know because seen a lot of powerful things like cars, tools, heavy machinery, jet engines, laser cutters and i have an idea of their power in terms of respective units. Wondering how much energy will 1MeV really carry? Please make me understand in simple way!

For electron velocity it means v ≈ 0.87*c.

 

[EinsteinII]

1 MeV = 10⁶ eV = 1.6 x 10^-13 Joules. Not so much, but then again, elementary particles are rather small.

Thank you very much for that explanation! I wonder how much energy is released when One MT nuclear weapon is detonated!

 

[Norman]

I believe 1 megaton is on the order of 10¹⁵ joules

 

[EinsteinII]

For electron velocity it means v ≈ 0.87*c.

Explain this for me please!

 

[arivero]

Two interesting rods here are:

- how many GeVs is one unit of atomic mass?
- how many MeVs do you get from the fusion Deuterium->Helium?

 

[Doc Al]

For electron velocity it means v ≈ 0.87*c.

Explain this for me please!

He means that if an electron had a total energy of 1 MeV, it would be moving at that speed. The speed is expressed as a fraction of c, the speed of light, which acts as a "speed limit" for all massive particles.

If an electron at rest (which already has some energy due to its mass) were to be given an additional 1 MeV of kinetic energy, it would end up moving at about 0.94*c.