The nuclide 247Es can be made by bombardment of 238U in a reaction that emits five neutrons. Identify the bombarding particle.

Video transcript

Hey everyone were asked what particle is used to bombard thorium 2 to produce a new glide of California to 50 and give off three neutrons first, let's go ahead and write out our reaction. We have thorium 237 And when we check our periodic table we see that it has an atomic number of and this is going to be bombarded by a certain element. And we end up with California 50. And when we check our periodic table, we see that California has an atomic number of 98 plus three neutrons 1st. Let's go ahead and solve for a Looking at our thorium, it has an a. 2:37 which is its atomic mass. And we're going to add our missing particles A And this is going to lead us to to 50 from art California plus three from our neutrons, Solving for a we get to 53 equals to 37 plus a. And when we subtract our 237 we end up with an a. of 16. Next solving for Z. We see that our thorium has a Z. of 90 which is its atomic number. And we're going to add our missing particles E which will lead us to plus zero. Since California has An atomic number of 98 and our neutrons have an atomic number of zero Solving for R. Z. We get 98 -90 which will get us to a value of eight. Looking at our periodic table, it looks like our missing particle is going to be oxygen since oxygen has An atomic number of eight And its mass is going to be 16. So I hope this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.