Photo AI
Carbon-13 and carbon-14 are isotopes of carbon - Edexcel - GCSE Physics Combined Science - Question 6 - 2019 - Paper 1
Question 6
Carbon-13 and carbon-14 are isotopes of carbon. Nuclei of carbon-13 and carbon-14 can be represented by these symbols $$^{13}_{6}C$$ and $$^{14}_{6}C$$ Complete the... show full transcript
Worked Solution & Example Answer:Carbon-13 and carbon-14 are isotopes of carbon - Edexcel - GCSE Physics Combined Science - Question 6 - 2019 - Paper 1
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Determine the age of the piece of wood.
Answer
To calculate the age, we observe that the number of carbon-14 atoms decreased from 1,000,000 to 125,000. To find how many half-lives occurred:
-
Calculate the decay factor: rac{1,000,000}{125,000} = 8
-
Since the amount of carbon-14 is halved each half-life, we find: Where is the number of half-lives. Thus, half-lives.
-
Multiply the number of half-lives by the half-life duration: Age of wood = years.
Step 5
Explain what the information in Figure 5 and Figure 6 shows about the structure of an atom.
Answer
The results from the experiment conducted by Rutherford indicate that atoms are mostly empty space, as evidenced by the large number of alpha particles passing through the gold foil undetected. The observation that very few alpha particles were deflected at large angles suggests that a small, dense, positively charged nucleus exists at the center of the atom. The majority of the mass of the atom is concentrated in this nucleus, while electrons orbit around this nucleus, leading to an overall neutral charge.