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doggydan42
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Homework Statement
A Van de Graaff generator is one of the original particle accelerators and can be used to accelerate charged particles like protons or electrons. You may have seen it used to make human hair stand on end or produce large sparks. One application of the Van de Graaff generator is to create X-rays by bombarding a hard metal target with the beam. Consider a beam of protons at 1.00 keV and a current of 5.00 mA produced by the generator. (a) What is the speed of the protons? (b) How many protons are produced each second?
Homework Equations
$$I=\frac{dq}{dt}
\\ U + K = 0 \Rightarrow -\Delta U = \frac{1}{2} mv^2$$
The Attempt at a Solution
To find the speed of the protons, would I be able to use the second equation by using m being the mass of a single proton instead of all of the protons in the beam? Also, if U is negative then would I not be taking the square root of a negative number?
Thank you in advance