A defibrillator is used during a heart attack to restore the heart to its normal beating pattern. a defibrillator passes 17 a of current through the torso of a person in 1.9 ms. (a) how much charge moves during this time? (b) how many electrons pass through the wires connected to the patient? (a) number units
(a) To determine the charge in units of Coulomb, you multiply the current with the time since ampere is coulomb/sec.
17 C/s * (1.9 ms * 1s /1000 ms) = 0.0323 C
(b) To determine the number of electrons, we use the Faraday's law (96500 C per mole electron) and the Avogadro's number (1 mole = 6.022 x 10^23 electrons) 17 C/s * (1 s/ 1000 ms) * (1.9 ms) * (1 mol e/96500 C) * (6.022 x 10^23 e / mole e) = 2.016 x 10^17 electrons
