You can use the radio waves generated by a hydrogen maser as a standard of frequ

Question

You can use the radio waves generated by a hydrogen maser as a standard of frequency. The frequency of these waves is 1420405751.786 hertz. (A hertz is another name for one cycle per second.) A clock controlled by a hydrogen maser is off by only 1s in 100000 years. For the following questions, use only three significant figures. (The large number of significant figures given for the frequency simply illustrates the remarkable accuracy to which it has been measured.)

(a)What is the time for one cycle of the radio wave?

(b)How many cycles occur in 7hours?

(d)By how many seconds would a hydrogen maser clock be off after a time interval equal to the age of the earth?

Explanation / Answer

a) 1,420,405,751.786 cycles in a second 1/that value = time of 1 cycle = 7.04 x 10^-10 b) 1,420,405,751.786 cycles in 1 second - 3600 seconds in an hour - multiply the two = 5,113,460,706,429.6 c) 31,536,000 seconds in a year x (4.6x10^9) = 145065600000000000 d) 1 second out for ever 100,000 years 4600000000 years of the earth - so 4600000000/100,000 = 46,000 seconds

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