The radius of a copper (Cu) atom is roughly 1.3 * 10-10 m. How many times can you divide evenly a 223.3-cm long piece of copper wire until it is reduced to two separate copper atoms? (Assume there are appropriate tools for this procedure and that copper atoms are lined up in a straight line, in contact with each other. Round off your answer to an integer.)

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Chemistry

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21 July, 18:22

The radius of a copper (Cu) atom is roughly 1.3 * 10-10 m. How many times can you divide evenly a 223.3-cm long piece of copper wire until it is reduced to two separate copper atoms? (Assume there are appropriate tools for this procedure and that copper atoms are lined up in a straight line, in contact with each other. Round off your answer to an integer.)

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Amiya Anthony · Answer 1

8,588,461,537

Explanation:

Since the atoms are arranged in a straight line in contact with each other what we have to do is divide the length into the diameter of copper (2r) to obtain the number of atoms in the 223.3 cm of copper wire, and from there we can figure how many times we wil have to divide it to answer our question.

diameter = 2 x (1.3 x 10⁻¹⁰ m) = 2.6 x 10⁻¹⁰ m

The number of diameters in 223.3 cm (2.233 m) which is the number of atoms in this length:

2.233 m / 2.6 x 10⁻¹⁰ m/atom = 8,588,461,538 atoms

So we will have to divide it 8,588,461,537 (one minus because we want to sepate 8,588,461,538 atoms)

This is a problem where we have to work with integers and not decimals since we can not speak for example of 0.5 individual atoms