Class 12 Physics - Chapter Electric Charges and Field NCERT Solutions | An infinite line charge produces a field

What is the force between two small charged spheres having charges of 2 x 10^-7 C and 3 x 10^-7 C placed 30 cm apart in air?

A polythene piece rubbed with wool is found to have a negative charge of 3 × 10⁻⁷ C.

(a) Estimate the number of electrons transferred (from which to which?)

(b) Is there a transfer of mass from wool to polythene?

A point charge +10 μC is a distance 5 cm directly above the centre of a square of side 10 cm, as shown in Fig. 1.34. What is the magnitude of the electric flux through the square? (Hint: Think of the square as one face of a cube with edge 10 cm.)

A conducting sphere of radius 10 cm has an unknown charge. If the electric field 20 cm from the centre of the sphere is 1.5 × 10³ N/C and points radially inward, what is the net charge on the sphere?

A point charge of 2.0 μC is at the centre of a cubic Gaussian surface 9.0 cm on edge. What is the net electric flux through the surface?

The electrostatic force on a small sphere of charge 0.4 μC due to another small sphere of charge − 0.8 μC in air is 0.2 N.

(a) What is the distance between the two spheres?

(b) What is the force on the second sphere due to the first?

Two point charges q_A = 3 μC and q_B = −3 μC are located 20 cm apart in vacuum.

(a) What is the electric field at the midpoint O of the line AB joining the two charges?

(b) If a negative test charge of magnitude 1.5 × 10⁻⁹ C is placed at this point, what is the force experienced by the test charge?

An electric dipole with dipole moment 4 × 10⁻⁹ C m is aligned at 30° with the direction of a uniform electric field of magnitude 5 × 10⁴N C⁻¹. Calculate the magnitude of the torque acting on the dipole.

A uniformly charged conducting sphere of 2.4 m diameter has a surface charge density of 80.0 μC/m².

(a) Find the charge on the sphere.

(b) What is the total electric flux leaving the surface of the sphere?

Suppose the spheres A and B in Exercise 1.12 have identical sizes. A third sphere of the same size but uncharged is brought in contact with the first, then brought in contact with the second, and finally removed from both. What is the new force of repulsion between A and B?

Answer the following questions regarding earth's magnetism:

(a) A vector needs three quantities for its specification. Name the three independent quantities conventionally used to specify the earth's magnetic field.

(b) The angle of dip at a location in southern India is about 18º.

Would you expect a greater or smaller dip angle in Britain?

(c) If you made a map of magnetic field lines at Melbourne in Australia, would the lines seem to go into the ground or come out of the ground?

(d) In which direction would a compass free to move in the vertical plane point to, if located right on the geomagnetic north or south pole?

(e) The earth's field, it is claimed, roughly approximates the field due to a dipole of magnetic moment 8 x 1022 J T^-1 located at its centre. Check the order of magnitude of this number in some way.

(f ) Geologists claim that besides the main magnetic N-S poles, there are several local poles on the earth's surface oriented in different directions. How is such a thing possible at all?

(a) Two stable isotopes of lithium 6Li3 and7Li3 have respective abundances of 7.5% and 92.5%. These isotopes have masses 6.01512 u and 7.01600 u, respectively. Find the atomic mass of lithium.

(b) Boron has two stable isotopes, ¹⁰B₅ and ¹¹B₅ . Their respective masses are 10.01294 u and 11.00931 u, and the atomic mass of boron is 10.811 u. Find the abundances of  ¹⁰B₅ and ¹¹B₅.

A small candle, 2.5 cm in size is placed at 27 cm in front of a concave mirror of radius of curvature 36 cm. At what distance from the mirror should a screen be placed in order to obtain a sharp image? Describe the nature and size of the image. If the candle is moved closer to the mirror, how would the screen have to be moved?

Figure 8.6 shows a capacitor made of two circular plates each of radius 12 cm, and separated by 5.0 cm. The capacitor is being charged by an external source (not shown in the figure). The charging current is constant and equal to 0.15 A.

(a) Calculate the capacitance and the rate of charge of potential difference between the plates.

(b) Obtain the displacement current across the plates.

(c) Is Kirchhoff’s first rule (junction rule) valid at each plate of the capacitor? Explain.

Monochromatic light of wavelength 589 nm is incident from air on a water surface. What are the wavelength, frequency and speed of
(a) reflected, and
(b) refracted light? Refractive index of water is 1.33.

Two charges 5 x 10^-8 C and -3 x 10^-8 C are located 16 cm apart. At what point(s) on the line joining the two charges is the electric potential zero? Take the potential at infinity to be zero.

Figure 2.34 shows a charge array known as an electric quadrupole. For a point on the axis of the quadrupole, obtain the dependence of potential on r for r/a >> 1, and contrast your results with that due to an electric dipole, and an electric monopole (i.e., a single charge).

Light of frequency 7.21 × 10¹⁴ Hz is incident on a metal surface. Electrons with a maximum speed of 6.0 × 10⁵ m/s are ejected from the surface. What is the threshold frequency for photoemission of electrons?

 Answer carefully:

(a) Two large conducting spheres carrying charges Q₁ and Q₂ are brought close to each other. Is the magnitude of electrostatic force between them exactly given by Q₁Q₂/4π∈₀r², where r is the distance between their centres?

(b) If Coulomb's law involved 1/r³ dependence (instead of 1/r²), would Gauss's law be still true?

(c) A small test charge is released at rest at a point in an electrostatic field configuration. Will it travel along the field line passing through that point?

(d) What is the work done by the field of a nucleus in a complete circular orbit of the electron? What if the orbit is elliptical?

(e) We know that electric field is discontinuous across the surface of a charged conductor. Is electric potential also discontinuous there?

(f) What meaning would you give to the capacitance of a single conductor?

(g) Guess a possible reason why water has a much greater dielectric constant (= 80) than say, mica (= 6).

A hydrogen atom initially in the ground level absorbs a photon, which excites it to the n = 4 level. Determine the wavelength and frequency of the photon.

Two charges 5 x 10^-8 C and -3 x 10^-8 C are located 16 cm apart. At what point(s) on the line joining the two charges is the electric potential zero? Take the potential at infinity to be zero.

A charged particle oscillates about its mean equilibrium position with a frequency of 10⁹ Hz. What is the frequency of the electromagnetic waves produced by the oscillator?

A parallel plate capacitor is to be designed with a voltage rating 1 kV, using a material of dielectric constant 3 and dielectric strength about 10⁷ Vm^-1. (Dielectric strength is the maximum electric field a material can tolerate without breakdown, i.e., without starting to conduct electricity through partial ionisation.) For safety, we should like the field never to exceed, say 10% of the dielectric strength. What minimum area of the plates is required to have a capacitance of 50 pF?