Question

In the 1980s, the term picowave was used to describe food irradiation in order to overcome public resistance by playing on the well-known safety of microwave radiation. Find the energy in MeV of a photon having a wavelength of a picometer.

(a) 124 MeV
(b) 10 MeV
(c) 24 MeV
(d) 30 MeV

Answer 1

The energy of a photon with a wavelength of one picometer is approximately 12.41 MeV.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the energy of a photon, we can use the equation E = hc/λ, where E is the energy of the photon, h is Planck's constant (4.1357 × 10^-15 eV·s), c is the speed of light (2.998 × 10^8 m/s), and λ is the wavelength of the photon in meters.

First, we need to convert the wavelength from picometers to meters. 1 picometer is equal to 1 × 10^-12 meters.

So, for a wavelength of 1 picometer (1 × 10^-12 meters), we can substitute these values into the equation to find the energy:

E = (4.1357 × 10^-15 eV·s) × (2.998 × 10^8 m/s) / (1 × 10^-12 meters) = 12.4065 MeV.

Therefore, the energy of a photon with a wavelength of one picometer is approximately 12.41 MeV.