PHYS 105

Study Questions and Study suggestions for Test #4

This guide is to help you review for the test. I am listing questions and suggestions from each chapter that I believe represent the essentials. In addition I have included questions from the link on Nuclear Energy listed bellow. You should also review the questionnaire for the movie on Nuclear Theory and Energy

http://library.thinkquest.org/3471/

Click on the URL above and answer the following questions:

  1. State the accomplishments of the following scientists:
    1. Democritus
    2. Henrie Becquerel
    3. J. J. Thomson
    4. Earnest Rutherford
    5. Niels Bohr
    6. Chadwick
    7. Strassman and Fritz
    8. Enrico Fermi
  1. List the four fundamental forces of nature? Which force binds nuclei?
  2. List and identify the three types of radiation.
  3. Who discovered the formula E =mc2? What ate some of its consequences?
  4. Which nuclear devices or objects use fission and which use fusion:
    1. The sun and other stars______________
    2. Atomic bomb _____________
    3. Hydrogen bomb_____________
    4. Nuclear Reactor______________
    5. Thermonuclear Reactor_______________
  1. What was the purpose of the Manhattan Project?
  2. Name the two Japanese cities where atomic bombs were dropped in 1945. How many died in each city due to these explosions?
  3. State how nuclear science is used in medicine and archaeology.
  4. List some advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy.
  5. What is the "Standard Model"?

 

 

Ch. 8. Nuclear Energy:

Nuclear Virtual Tourist

  1. What % of US electrical power is generated using nuclear reactors?
  2. When, where and by whom was the first experimental reactor built?
  3. When and where was the first US commercial reactor built?
  4. Define the following terms :
    1. Mass number
    2. Isotope
    3. Fusion
    4. Fission
    5. Atomic number
    6. Half-life
  1. A wooden artifact from an archeological site has only 1/8 of its original (when it was part of a live tree) carbon-14. If the half-life of carbon tree is 5730 years, how old is the wooden artifact?
  2. Which isotope of Uranium is fissionable?
  3. How is Plutonium-239 produced?
  4. What is the difference between control rods and moderators in a nuclear reactor?
  5. What is the difference between BWR and PWR reactors?
  6. Is the Catawba Nuclear reactor a BWR or a PWR?
  7. By what % of 235U must a UO2 be enriched to a fuel for a nuclear reactor?
  8. By what % of 235U must a UO2 be enriched to be a fuel for a nuclear bomb?
  9. Why are breeder reactors discouraged in the US?
  10. Give reasons why a nuclear reactor can not explode like a nuclear bomb?
  11. What is the worst possible accident that can happen in a nuclear reactor? Where in the world did such an accident happen?
  12. What do the abbreviations LOCA and ECCS mean? Name a reactor in the US where there was an ECCS failure and LOCA happened.
  13. What was the movie China syndrome all about?
  14. Briefly state what happened at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine? What was the major cause of this accident?
  15. What is a fundamental problem associated with nuclear power plants?
  16. What is the acceptable practice for disposal of low level nuclear waste?
  17. What are the plans for "welded Tuff" in Yucca Mountain in Nevada?
  18. What is fused to what in the sun and H-bombs?
  19. What is the major obstacle in building thermonuclear reactors?
  20. If thermonuclear actors where to be built what will be their advantage over present day nuclear reactors?