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Topic: Principles of Millikan  (Read 9171 times)

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integral0

  • Guest
Principles of Millikan
« on: December 21, 2004, 09:11:27 AM »
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

----------------------------
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?

Demotivator

  • Guest
Re:Principles of Millikan
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2004, 10:39:49 AM »
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.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2004, 10:43:29 AM by Demotivator »

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