Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Inorganic Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: integral0 on December 21, 2004, 09:11:27 AM
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You have just discovered a new, fundamental particle of nature. When measuring its mass, you obtain the following data for five samples:
4.72 x 10-34 gram
9.44 x10-34 gram
1.180x10-33 gram
1.652x10-33 gram
7.08x10-34 gram
If you make the same assumptions that Millikan did, what is the maximum mass of the new particle?
(A) 4.72x10-34 g
(B) 1.18x10-34 g
(C) 9.44x10-34 g
(D) 2.36x10-34 g
(E) 9.91x10-34 g
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I tried averaging all the mass of the particles to come up with the avg which is answer (E) but that is wrong. I then tried to find a common divisior like Millikan did when he divided the charge of an electron by the negative charges in his oil drop experiment but to no avail I didn't get the answer which is (D).
Could someone please explain to me how this is done?
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The Largest common divisor has to be imbedded in the smallest number, as well as the others.
Take the smallest number: 4.72 x 10-34
Divide by a sequence of integers starting at 1, then 2, 3 etc, one at a time, till the number obtained divides evenly into all numbers. In this case the second try, 4.72/2 = 2.36 is successful since 2.36 x 10-34 divides evenly into all.