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Momentum - related question

I have been trying to solve this problem for quite a while now, I even asked one of my teachers and they found it hard and could not solve it.
So,

A stationary unstable nucleus of mass M emits an alpha particle of mass m with kinetic energy E .

What is the speed of recoil of the daughter nucleus ?

The answer is
A ) √2mE / (M-m)

I've attached a photo of the question so you also see the diagram, maybe it helps.
( https://imgur.com/8UbT5Jg )
But I do not know how to get to it. Can anyone explain it step by step please? Thank you !
Reply 1
Attachment not found


I got this far, but I don’t know how they get the m on the top of the fraction, maybe you could work it out from here?
Original post by Thanquinho
I have been trying to solve this problem for quite a while now, I even asked one of my teachers and they found it hard and could not solve it.
So,

A stationary unstable nucleus of mass M emits an alpha particle of mass m with kinetic energy E .

What is the speed of recoil of the daughter nucleus ?

The answer is
A ) √2mE / (M-m)

I've attached a photo of the question so you also see the diagram, maybe it helps.
( https://imgur.com/8UbT5Jg )
But I do not know how to get to it. Can anyone explain it step by step please? Thank you !



Alpha particle has mass m and kinetic energy E, so if it's speed is u, then we have E=12mu2E=\frac{1}{2}mu^2

And we can rearrange to get u=2Emu=\sqrt{\frac{2E}{m}}.....(1)

Mass of daughter nucleus is M-m, and let it's speed be v.

Then by conservation of momentum.

mu=(Mm)vmu=(M-m)v

Make v the subject and substitute for u from (1)
Reply 3
Original post by RoseVet
Attachment not found


I got this far, but I don’t know how they get the m on the top of the fraction, maybe you could work it out from here?


Thanks !
Reply 4
Original post by ghostwalker
Alpha particle has mass m and kinetic energy E, so if it's speed is u, then we have E=12mu2E=\frac{1}{2}mu^2

And we can rearrange to get u=2Emu=\sqrt{\frac{2E}{m}}.....(1)

Mass of daughter nucleus is M-m, and let it's speed be v.

Then by conservation of momentum.

mu=(Mm)vmu=(M-m)v

Make v the subject and substitute for u from (1)


Thank you, I ve asked about 3 teachers and all of them got stuck on this question.

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