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Ch 37: Special Relativity

Chapter 36, Problem 39

The energy-level scheme for the hypothetical oneelectron element Searsium is shown in Fig. E39.25

. The potential energy is taken to be zero for an electron at an infinite distance from the nucleus. (b) An 18-eV photon is absorbed by a Searsium atom in its ground level. As the atom returns to its ground level, what possible energies can the emitted photons have? Assume that there can be transitions between all pairs of levels.

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Welcome back, everyone. We are making observations about a certain theoretical hydrogen like atom that has this following energy level diagram. And we are tasked with finding what are the conceivable energies of the emitted photons? Well, we are told that the atom in the fundamental state of N equals one is going to have an electromagnetic radiation of 16 electron volts and the atom is going to be in the second excited state. So what we'll do is we'll start from N equals three and then we'll go down to its below levels here. So going from N equals three, first two N equals two, we have the energy of the conceivable transition here is equal to energy level at energy two minus E three. What this gives us is the absolute value of negative 4.5 minus negative two giving us 2.5 electron volts. Now let's go from N equals 32 N equals one. Here. We have that our energy, our energy is equal to E one minus E three. This time this gives us negative 18 minus negative two which gives us 16 electron volts. So the conceivable energies for our emitted photons are 2.5 E V and 16 E V which correspond to our final answer choice of c Thank you all so much for watching. I hope this video helped. We will see you all in the next one.
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In a set of experiments on a hypothetical oneelectron atom, you measure the wavelengths of the photons emitted from transitions ending in the ground level (n = 1), as shown in the energy-level diagram in Fig. E39.27

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