OpenStax College Physics for AP® Courses, Chapter 19, Problem 2 (Problems & Exercises)

This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. Electrons are accelerated through a potential difference of 40.0 kilovolts which is 40 times 10 to the 3 volts and the question is what would their maximum speed be ignoring any relativistic effects? So the change in potential energy of these electrons is the charge multiplied by the potential difference and the amount of change in kinetic energy of the electrons equals the amount of change in potential energy. and I put absolute value bars in here just that so we can ignore negative signs here and we'll say that the kinetic energy is equal to the magnitude of the potential energy change. So the change in kinetic energy is one-half times mass times final velocity squared because there is no initial velocity because they are accelerated from rest so I didn't write that term down. And we can solve for v f squared by multiplying both sides by 2 over m and we get v f squared is 2qΔV over m and then take the square root of both sides to solve for the final speed. So that's the square root of 2 times the charge times the potential difference divided by mass of an electron. So that's 2 times 1.60 times 10 to the minus 19 coulombs times 40 kilovolts divided by 9.11 times 10 to the minus 31 kilograms— mass of an electron— square root all of that and you get a speed of 1. or well... I didn't put in any point at all, I just put one significant figure because this 40 kilovolts it's a bit ambiguous as to how many significant figures it has and it's probably fair to assume it has only one. So 1 times 10 to the 8 meters per second would be the maximum final speed of these electrons.