i need help

[wwhong]

hey dudes,

I have a question here which I am not sure how to solve. Here it is:

Our star, the sun, is powered by fusion, including the D-D and D-T reactions which produce neutrons of 2.4MeV and 14 MeV respectively.

a) If the distance from the Earth to the Sun is 1AU, and the neutron halfflife is 10.25 minutes, what fraction fo the Sun's neutron reach the Earth. How long does it require for sunlight to reach the Earth?

b) Suppose that those neutrons which do reach the Earth, arrive with their full initial energy and then slow down to thermal equilibrium with the atoms in the atmosphere. Predict what will happen to those neutrons.

c) In part a, would you expect a solution based on classical mechanics to differ significantly from one based on special relativity and why?

i never quite studied relativity before or whatever thermal equilibrium with atoms in the atmosphere but that's what my prof asked us to do.

appreciate if you could kindly tell me what to look for and how to solve the problem.

i m not sure if this is appropriate to put on the forum but if it's not then just delete it and i wil go eat myself.

cheers.

[screw3d]

Is this for an assignment or what? This is all way out of my scope and I'll just give you a good luck post.

Look at my sig for hints on how to get more info! :D

[chenchow]

i'm not sure how much it would be of help, but do check notes from similar courses from other unis in e-learning, who knows u can find same questions in other unis... hehehe

Another thing would be for everyone, when you start a new topic in the future, please put a topic particular, not something like "i need help", so that it would give others a sense of what is in the topic...

[wwhong]

appreciate your replies.

i m not hoping you will solve my problem for me but i m hoping to get some direction or how to approach the problem. of course if u will, you are more than welcome :lol:

yeah, google is a good info source but sometime too much info is kinda bad, ie dunno where to look for and too much stuff to read.

btw, sorry chen chow. i will think of a creative topic next time.

[Schye]

I think we need to filter out the resource that we got from the internet especially those from personal homepage. Lecturers dont accept internet as one of reference resources except official homepage of recognised organization.

However, google is still my main resouce other than books in library which is 100% in Japanese :cry: