Question: The power supply for a pacemaker is a small amount of radioactive 238Pu. This nuclide decays by a decay with a half-life of 86 yr.
(a) By what percentage does the activity of the 238Pu source decrease in 10 yr?
(b) The energy of the α particles emitted is 5.6 MeV. Assume an efficiency of 100%-all of the a-particle energy is used to run the pacemaker. If the pacemaker starts with 1.0 mg of 238Pu, what is the power output initially and after 10.0 yr?
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a The activity is given by R R 0 12 tT12 Compute a ratio of the activities T... View full answer
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