Explain what would happen if in the capacitor given in Exercise 2.8, a 3 mm thick mica sheet (of dielectric constant = 6) were inserted between the plates,

(a) While the voltage supply remained connected.

(b) After the supply was disconnected.

An infinite line charge produces a field of 9 × 10⁴ N/C at a distance of 2 cm. Calculate the linear charge density.

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 600 pF capacitor is charged by a 200 V supply. It is then disconnected from the supply and is connected to another uncharged 600 pF capacitor. How much electrostatic energy is lost in the process?

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 regular hexagon of side 10 cm has a charge 5 µC at each of its vertices. Calculate the potential at the centre of the hexagon.

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 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?

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?

Figure shows a potentiometer with a cell of 2.0 V and internal resistance 0.40 Ω  maintaining a potential drop across the resistor wire AB. A standard cell which maintains a constant emf of 1.02 V (for very moderate currents up to a few mA) gives a balance point at 67.3 cm length of the wire. To ensure very low currents drawn from the standard cell, a very high resistance of 600 kΩ  is put in series with it, which is shorted close to the balance point. The standard cell is then replaced by a cell of unknown emf Ωµ and the balance point found similarly, turns out to be at 82.3 cm length of the wire.

(a) What is the value Ωµ ?

(b) What purpose does the high resistance of 600 kΩ  have?

(c) Is the balance point affected by this high resistance?

(d) Is the balance point affected by the internal resistance of the driver cell?

(e) Would the method work in the above situation if the driver cell of the potentiometer had an emf of 1.0 V instead of 2.0 V?

(f ) Would the circuit work well for determining an extremely small emf, say of the order of a few mV (such as the typical emf of a thermo-couple)? If not, how will you modify the circuit?

a) Given n resistors each of resistance R, how will you combine them to get the (i) maximum (ii) minimum effective resistance? What is the ratio of the maximum to minimum resistance?

(b) Given the resistances of 1 Ω , 2 Ω , 3 Ω , how will be combine them to get an equivalent resistance of (i) (11/3) Ω  (ii) (11/5) Ω , (iii) 6 Ω , (iv) (6/11) Ω ?

(c) Determine the equivalent resistance of networks shown in Figure

Answer the following questions:
(a) The earths magnetic field varies from point to point in space. Does it also change with time? If so, on what time scale does it change appreciably?
(b) The earths core is known to contain iron. Yet geologists do not regard this as a source of the earths magnetism. Why?
(c) The charged currents in the outer conducting regions of the earths core are thought to be responsible for earths magnetism. What might be the battery (i.e., the source of energy) to sustain these currents?
(d) The earth may have even reversed the direction of its field several times during its history of 4 to 5 billion years. How can geologists know about the earths field in such distant past?
(e) The earths field departs from its dipole shape substantially at large distances (greater than about 30,000 km). What agencies may be responsible for this distortion?
(f ) Interstellar space has an extremely weak magnetic field of the order of 10−12 T. Can such a weak field be of any significant consequence? Explain.
[Note: Exercise 5.2 is meant mainly to arouse your curiosity. Answers to some questions above are tentative or unknown. Brief answers wherever possible are given at the end. For details, you should consult a good text on geomagnetism.]

Two charges -q and +q are located at points (0, 0, - a) and (0, 0, a), respectively.

(a) What is the electrostatic potential at the points?

(b) Obtain the dependence of potential on the distance r of a point from the origin when r/a >> 1.

(c) How much work is done in moving a small test charge from the point (5, 0, 0) to (-7, 0, 0) along the x-axis? Does the answer change if the path of the test charge between the same points is not along the x-axis?

A cylindrical capacitor has two co-axial cylinders of length 15 cm and radii 1.5 cm and 1.4 cm. The outer cylinder is earthed and the inner cylinder is given a charge of 3.5 µC. Determine the capacitance of the system and the potential of the inner cylinder. Neglect end effects (i.e., bending of field lines at the ends).

(a) Six lead-acid type of secondary cells each of emf 2.0 V and internal resistance 0.015 Ω are joined in series to provide a supply to a resistance of 8.5 Ω. What are the current drawn from the supply and its terminal voltage?

(b) A secondary cell after long use has an emf of 1.9 V and a large internal resistance of 380 Ω. What maximum current can be drawn from the cell? Could the cell drive the starting motor of a car?

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.

Two tiny spheres carrying charges 1.5 μC and 2.5 μC are located 30 cm apart. Find the potential and electric field:

(a) at the mid-point of the line joining the two charges, and

(b) at a point 10 cm from this midpoint in a plane normal to the line and passing through the mid-point.

A Rowland ring of mean radius 15 cm has 3500 turns of wire wound on a ferromagnetic core of relative permeability 800. What is the magnetic field B in the core for a magnetising current of 1.2 A?

In a certain region of space, electric field is along the z-direction throughout. The magnitude of electric field is, however, not constant but increases uniformly along the positive z-direction, at the rate of 105 NC^-1 per metre. What are the force and torque experienced by a system having a total dipole moment equal to 10^-7 Cm in the negative z-direction?