How Fast Must a Hydrogen Atom Be Traveling for Its

question 12

Multiple Choice

How fast must a hydrogen atom be traveling for its kinetic energy to be just enough to excite the ground-state atom to its first excited state in a collision? (1 eV = 1.60 × 10^-19 J, m_h ≈ m_proton = 1.67 × 10^-27 kg)

• A)44.2 km/s
• B)21.7 km/s
• C)66.5 km/s
• D)113 km/s
• E)51.0 km/s

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Definitions:

Service Rate

The speed at which a service or processing operation is expected or able to serve customers or produce outputs.

Poisson Distributions

Statistical models used to predict the probability of a given number of events occurring within a specified time period, based on a known average rate of occurrence.

Continuous Probability

Describes the probability of outcomes within a continuous range of values, rather than discrete outcomes.

Negative Exponential

A type of mathematical function that decreases rapidly from a positive value toward zero, often used to model decay or depreciation processes.