Thank you! I made the adjustments and got 1.38*10^9 K. I'd talked myself into thinking I had it down instead of double checking my calculator.
Here I am confused. The next part of the question starts with "Since the core of the sun has a temperature of only about ten million degrees Kelvin...
Hey guys; I checked over my work several times and I think my original answer, even though I got to it incorrectly, is actually right.
My calculation ends in 2.2 * 1010 K as being the temperature required for a proton to cross the Coulomb Barrier, so I divide this by 2 to account for their being...
Sure! Here we go.
U = k(e2/r)
= (8.99*10^9)*(1.6*10^-19)2/(2.0*10-15) ( found a mistake here as I was typing it out; I'd originally used 1 fm instead of 2..)
= 4.6 * 10-13 J
= 2.8 * 106 eV
I solved the KE formula for T to get
T = (2/3)*(1/kb)*KE, where kb = 8.62*10-5 eV/K
T =...
Hey guys, I'm working on a homework problem about nuclear fusion in stars and am..stuck on the first step: calculating the temperature needed for protons to come within 2 fm of one another and overcome Coulomb repulsion.
1. Homework Statement
Given that the protons have an average kinetic...