Engineering Mathematics Blog, Physics, Solutions

College Physics Problem 1.31

How many times longer than the mean life of an extremely unstable atomic nucleus is the lifetime of a human? (Hint: The lifetime of an unstable atomic nucleus is on the order of  10^{-22} s .)

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The lifetime of a human is 2times10^{9} s, while the lifetime of the unstable atomic nucleus is 10^{-22} s.

Therefore, human lifetime is much longer by

frac{T_{h}}{T_{n}}=frac{2times10^{9}}{10^{-22}}=2times10^{31} times

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