10.3 Exercise 14

Armor-piercing shells with depleted uranium cores are fired by aircraft at tanks. (The high density of the uranium makes them effective.) The uranium is called depleted because it has had its $^{235} \text{U}$ removed for reactor use and is nearly pure $^{238} \text{U}$. Depleted uranium has been erroneously called nonradioactive. To demonstrate that this is wrong: (a) Calculate the activity of 60.0 g of pure $^{238} \text{U}$. (b) Calculate the activity of 60.0 g of natural uranium, neglecting the $^{234} \text{U}$ and all daughter nuclides.