An electron transitions between energy levels in an atom, releasing a photon with energy $3.2 \times 10^{-19} J$. We are asked to calculate the wavelength of this photon, given the speed of light $c = 3.0 \times 10^8 m/s$ and Planck's constant $h = 6.6 \times 10^{-34} J s$.
2025/4/13
1. Problem Description
An electron transitions between energy levels in an atom, releasing a photon with energy . We are asked to calculate the wavelength of this photon, given the speed of light and Planck's constant .
2. Solution Steps
First, we need to use the formula that relates the energy of a photon to its wavelength:
where is the energy of the photon, is Planck's constant, and is the frequency of the photon.
Also, the relationship between frequency and wavelength is:
where is the speed of light and is the wavelength.
From this, we can say that .
Substituting into the first equation, we get:
We can rearrange this equation to solve for the wavelength :
Now we can plug in the given values:
3. Final Answer
The wavelength of the photon is or .