Question

What is the energy released in this nuclear reaction  63Li+10n?31H+42He36Li+01n?13H+24He? (The atomic mass of 6Li6Li is 6.015121 u, and that of  3H3H is 3.01605 u)

___MeV

Answer 1

I think you mean this reaction.

This reaction is called neutron activation of lithium and is an exothermic reaction. That means it will release energy, which is given by the Q_m in the reaction. The energy released is due to the mass difference between the left and right sides of the reaction.

Masses of the nuclei are,

All of the masses are in Atomic Mass Units or amu. We'll see about converting them later, Inputing them in oue equation, we can see that it doesn't completely balance,

This mass difference is easy to find,

We are really good at defining things. And for this particular scale we have indeed a special conversion that will enable us to skip the whole kg thing and directly convert amu to Energy.

This may seem familiar as it the Einstein equation. We use energy to define mass since they can be converted into each other. c = light velocity which is constant.

So,

Using this,