Physicists attempting to create new kinds of atoms often do so by fusing together two existing atoms. For such fusion...

Annie on November 26, 2019

Hi @madisanbryant,

This question is asking you to find the answer choice which is "most strongly supported" by the information provided. This means you are to pick the answer choice which provides the conclusion for the premises provided. It is a tricky question given the number of premises you have to work with.

Here's a breakdown of the argument:
Premise: Physicists often create new kinds of atoms by fusing together two existing atoms.
Premise: To fuse atoms, they must collide at high enough speeds to overcome their electromagnetic forces.
Premise: But, if the speed is too high, the new atom will be very hot.
Premise: The hotter the atom, the more likely it is to immediately split apart.
Conclusion: ???

Answer Choices:
(A) is incorrect. We are not told that the atoms "usually" split apart immediately. We don't know anything about how frequently this occurs.

(B) is incorrect. The premises tell us that if the atom is too hot it will split apart, and that this occurs when they go too fast. This speed would definitely be enough to overcome the electromagnetic force.

(C) is incorrect. We aren't told anything in the premises about the varying strengths of the electromagnetic force (for all we know they could all have exactly the same amount of force).

(D) is incorrect. We are not told how much energy is produced if the atoms don't split apart. It's possible that they could produce a lot of energy when they collide and fuse and that it takes a TON of energy to make it split apart.

(E) is correct. The key word here is "considerably" which matches on to the "greatly exceeds" language in the premises. The premises tell us that if the energy to collide "greatly exceeds" the minimum required, the atom will be hot, and the hotter the atom the more likely to split apart. This answer choice simply puts this idea into a single sentence, and thereby provides a conclusion.

Matt_Drake on August 17 at 07:45PM

I chose E, but only due to process of elimination. The stimulus states that the chance that these atoms that collide with greater than necessary force have a 'greater chance' to split apart, yet E says that the split 'will be likely'. What if the chance of the split is typically very very small, and only raises by a fraction when excessive force is applied, say from 0.1% to 0.2%? Wouldn't the split still possibly be unlikely?

Emil-Kunkin on August 19 at 05:57PM

I agree it's not alright, but it's still supported by the passage. We are told that the energy is considerably more than is necessary, and that the hotter it is the more likely it is to split. While I agree this doesn't go quite as far as proving it is likely, it does give very strong support for it.

This is unquestionably a fairly soft must be true. I usually think of true must be trues as a 99.9 percent chance, and most strongly supporteds as something like a reasonable doubt standard, but I agree this one does seem to have just a shred of reasonable doubt. In this case I agree that choosing the thing that is supported, but not guaranteed by process of elimination is your best bet.