Question

Why must the electrical polarity of the tubes in a linear accelerator be reversed at very short time intervals?

Short answer

Using small amount of energy and by reversing the polarities in the tube, we can accelerate the particles and achieve higher energy.

Step-by-step solution

Linear accelerator

Linear accelerator is the device used in medicine for the production of X-rays. It increases the kinetic energy of the subatomic particles and ions.

Explanation

The machine that accelerates elementary particles to very high energies is a particle accelerator. In a linear particle accelerator, we can find tubes alongside elementary particles. As the particles moves to the tube,polarity gets reversed. This process accelerates the particles to gain higher energy. With this reversed in polarity, the particles are being repelled and attracted.

Hence, we can accelerate particles and achieve higher energy by using a modest quantity of energy and reversing the polarities in the tube.