Class 12 Physics - Chapter Electromagnetic Waves NCERT Solutions | A radio can tune in to any station in th

A plane electromagnetic wave travels in vacuum along z-direction. What can you say about the directions of its electric and magnetic field vectors? If the frequency of the wave is 30 MHz, what is its wavelength?

The amplitude of the magnetic field part of a harmonic electromagnetic wave in vacuum is B₀ = 510 nT. What is the amplitude of the electric field part of the wave?

Answer the following questions:

(a) Long distance radio broadcasts use short-wave bands. Why?

(b) It is necessary to use satellites for long distance TV transmission. Why?

(c) Optical and radio telescopes are built on the ground but X-ray astronomy is possible only from satellites orbiting the earth. Why?

(d) The small ozone layer on top of the stratosphere is crucial for human survival. Why?

(e) If the earth did not have an atmosphere, would its average surface temperature be higher or lower than what it is now?

(f) Some scientists have predicted that a global nuclear war on the earth would be followed by a severe ‘nuclear winter’ with a devastating effect on life on earth. What might be the basis of this prediction?

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?

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.

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?

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?

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.

A parallel plate capacitor with air between the plates has a capacitance of 8 pF (1pF = 10^-12 F). What will be the capacitance if the distance between the plates is reduced by half, and the space between them is filled with a substance of dielectric constant 6?

A charge of 8 mC is located at the origin. Calculate the work done in taking a small charge of -2 x 10^-9 C from a point P (0, 0, 3 cm) to a point Q (0, 4 cm, 0), via a point R (0, 6 cm, 9 cm).

A small sphere of radius r₁ and charge q₁ is enclosed by a spherical shell of radius r₂ and charge q₂. Show that if q₁ is positive, charge will necessarily flow from the sphere to the shell (when the two are connected by a wire) no matter what the charge q₂ on the shell is.

A spherical conducting shell of inner radius r1 and outer radius r2 has a charge Q.

(a) A charge q is placed at the centre of the shell. What is the surface charge density on the inner and outer surfaces of the shell?

(b) Is the electric field inside a cavity (with no charge) zero, even if the shell is not spherical, but has any irregular shape? Explain.

A short bar magnet of magnetic moment 5.25 x 10^-2J T^-1is placed with its axis perpendicular to the earth's field direction. At what distance from the centre of the magnet, the resultant field is inclined at 45º with earth's field on

(a) its normal bisector and (b) its axis. Magnitude of the earth's field at the place is given to be 0.42 G. Ignore the length of the magnet in comparison to the distances involved.

A straight horizontal conducting rod of length 0.45 m and mass 60 g is suspended by two vertical wires at its ends. A current of 5.0 A is set up in the rod through the wires.

(a) What magnetic field should be set up normal to the conductor in order that the tension in the wires is zero?

(b) What will be the total tension in the wires if the direction of current is reversed keeping the magnetic field same as before? (Ignore the mass of the wires.)          g = 9.8 m s^-2.

A hollow charged conductor has a tiny hole cut into its surface. Show that the σ/2ε₀ n̂ , where n̂ is the unit vector in the outward normal direction and σ is the surface charge density near the hole.

 A spherical conductor of radius 12 cm has a charge of 1.6 x 10^-7C distributed uniformly on its surface. What is the electric field

(a) Inside the sphere

(b) Just outside the sphere

(c) At a point 18 cm from the centre of the sphere?

For transistor action, which of the following statements are correct:

(a) Base, emitter and collector regions should have similar size and doping concentrations.

(b) The base region must be very thin and lightly doped.

(c) The emitter junction is forward biased and collector junction is reverse biased.

(d) Both the emitter junction as well as the collector junction are forward biased.

Frequencies in the UHF range normally propagate by means of

(a) Ground waves.

(b) Sky waves.

(c) Surface waves.

(d) Space waves.