11.7 Exercise 7

(a) Triply charged uranium-235 and uranium-238 ions are being separated in a mass spectrometer. (The much rarer uranium-235 is used as reactor fuel.) The masses of the ions are $$$3.90 \times 10^{−25} \text{kg}$ and $3.95 \times 10^{−25} \text{kg} ,$ respectively, and they travel at $3.0 \times 10^{5} \text{m}/\text{s}$ in a 0.250-T field. What is the separation between their paths when they hit a target after traversing a semicircle? (b) Discuss whether this distance between their paths seems to be big enough to be practical in the separation of uranium-235 from uranium-238.