Question

Roughly how many times longer than the mean life of an extremely unstable atomic nucleus is the lifetime of a human?

(a) 10^2
(b) 10^4
(c) 10^6
(d) 10^8

Answer 1

The lifetime of a human is roughly 10^22 times longer than the mean life of an extremely unstable atomic nucleus.

Step-by-step explanation:

The mean life of an extremely unstable atomic nucleus is on the order of 10-22 seconds. On the other hand, the lifetime of a human is much longer. To determine how many times longer, we can divide the lifetime of a human by the mean life of the nucleus.

Let's calculate:

Human lifetime = ?

Mean life of nucleus = 10-22 seconds

Since the human lifetime is much longer than the mean life of the nucleus, we can approximate the human lifetime to be on the order of 1022 seconds. Therefore, the lifetime of a human is roughly 1022 times longer than the mean life of an extremely unstable atomic nucleus.