College Physics 10th Edition by Raymond Serway,Chris Vuille

Exercise 15

An electric eel generates electric currents through its highly specialized Hunter's organ, in which thousands of disk-shaped cells called electrocytes are lined up in series, very much in the same way batteries are lined up inside a flashlight. When activated, each electrocyte can maintain a potential difference of about 150 mV at a current of 1 A for about 2.0 ms. Suppose a grown electric eel has 4.0 × 10 3 electrocytes and can deliver up to 300 shocks in rapid series over about 1 s. (a) What maximum electrical power can an electric eel generate (b) Approximately how much energy does it release in one shock (c) How high would a mass of 1 kg have to be lifted so that its gravitational potential energy equals the energy released in 300 such shocks