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An alpha particle (a Helium nuclues, containing two protons and two neutrons and

ID: 1399017 • Letter: A

Question

An alpha particle (a Helium nuclues, containing two protons and two neutrons and having a mass of 6.64*10^-27 kg) traveling horizontally at 35.6 km/s enters a uniform, vertical, 1.10 T magnetic field. What is the magnitude of the acceleration of the alpha particle while it is in the magnetic field?

This exact question was posted on here 8 years ago. One person got the same answer as me but the answer doesn't makes sense and the other person's answer has a 10^-12 that by the work that they show also doesn't make sense.

My work:

That seems a little fast. Would this violate the universal speed limit/speed of light? The other answer I saw gave the same answer with the same figures but they put 10^-12 instead of 10^12. I'm not sure what calculator they were using but I can not reproduce that result. Please help me with this because this answer just doesn't seem to be physically possible. Thanks

Explanation / Answer

You have calculated it correctly

Here force will act perpendicualr to the velcoity and magnetic field, basically this is centripetal force which will rotate the atom in a circular path

so here the acceleration we got is centripetal acceleration it will not incrase the velocity of the particle but it is needed to move the particle in a circular motion

Speed would remain same 3.56x104 m/s

so this will not violate the universal speed limit for light.

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