Class 12 Physics - Chapter Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance NCERT Solutions | Answer the following: (a) The top of
Answer the following:
(a) The top of the atmosphere is at about 400 kV with respect to the surface of the earth, corresponding to an electric field that decreases with altitude. Near the surface of the earth, the field is about 100 Vm-1. Why then do we not get an electric shock as we step out of our house into the open? (Assume the house to be a steel cage so there is no field inside!)
(b) A man fixes outside his house one evening a two metre high insulating slab carrying on its top a large aluminium sheet of area 1m2. Will he get an electric shock if he touches the metal sheet next morning?
(c) The discharging current in the atmosphere due to the small conductivity of air is known to be 1800 A on an average over the globe. Why then does the atmosphere not discharge itself completely in due course and become electrically neutral? In other words, what keeps the atmosphere charged?
(d) What are the forms of energy into which the electrical energy of the atmosphere is dissipated during a lightning? (Hint: The earth has an electric field of about 100 Vm-1 at its surface in the downward direction, corresponding to a surface charge density = -10-9 C m-2. Due to the slight conductivity of the atmosphere up to about 50 km (beyond which it i
(a) We do not get an electric shock as we step out of our house because the original equipotential surfaces of open air changes, keeping our body and the ground at the same potential.
(b) Yes, the man will get an electric shock if he touches the metal slab next morning. The steady discharging current in the atmosphere charges up the aluminium sheet. As a result, its voltage rises gradually. The raise in the voltage depends on the capacitance of the capacitor formed by the aluminium slab and the ground.
(c) The occurrence of thunderstorms and lightning charges the atmosphere continuously. Hence, even with the presence of discharging current of 1800 A, the atmosphere is not discharged completely. The two opposing currents are in equilibrium and the atmosphere remains electrically neutral.
(d) During lightning and thunderstorm, light energy, heat energy, and sound energy are dissipated in the atmosphere.
More Questions From Class 12 Physics - Chapter Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance
- Q:-
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?
- Q:-
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?
- Q:-
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.
- Q:-
Three capacitors of capacitances 2 pF, 3 pF and 4 pF are connected in parallel.
(a) What is the total capacitance of the combination?
(b) Determine the charge on each capacitor if the combination is connected to a 100 V supply.
- Q:-
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.
- Q:-
A cube of side b has a charge q at each of its vertices. Determine the potential and electric field due to this charge array at the centre of the cube.
- Q:-
A 12 pF capacitor is connected to a 50V battery. How much electrostatic energy is stored in the capacitor?
- Q:-
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.
- Q:-
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.
- Q:-
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).
Popular Questions of Class 12 Physics
- Q:-
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?
- Q:-
(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.
- Q:-
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?
- Q:-
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.
- Q:- The storage battery of a car has an emf of 12 V. If the internal resistance of the battery is 0.4Ω, what is the maximum current that can be drawn from the battery?
- Q:- A circular coil of wire consisting of 100 turns, each of radius 8.0 cm carries a current of 0.40 A. What is the magnitude of the magnetic field B at the centre of the coil?
- Q:- A rectangular wire loop of sides 8 cm and 2 cm with a small cut is moving out of a region of uniform magnetic field of magnitude 0.3 T directed normal to the loop. What is the emf developed across the cut if the velocity of the loop is 1 cm s−1 in a direction normal to the
(a) longer side,
(b) shorter side of the loop? For how long does the induced voltage last in each case? - Q:- A 100 Ω resistor is connected to a 220 V, 50 Hz ac supply.
(a) What is the rms value of current in the circuit?
(b) What is the net power consumed over a full cycle? - Q:-
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?
- Q:-
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.
Recently Viewed Questions of Class 12 Physics
- Q:-
What conclusion can you draw from the following observations on a resistor made of alloy manganin?
Current A Voltage V Current A Voltage V 0.2 3.94 3.0 59.2 0.4 7.87 4.0 78.8 0.6 11.8 5.0 98.6 0.8 15.7 6.0 118.5 1.0 19.7 7.0 138.2 2.0 39.4 8.0 158.0 - Q:-
Does short-sightedness (myopia) or long-sightedness (hypermetropia) imply necessarily that the eye has partially lost its ability of accommodation? If not, what might cause these defects of vision?
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In double-slit experiment using light of wavelength 600 nm, the angular width of a fringe formed on a distant screen is 0.1o. What is the spacing between the two slits?
- Q:-
Figure shows a potentiometer circuit for comparison of two resistances. The balance point with a standard resistor R = 10.0 Ω is found to be 58.3 cm, while that with the unknown resistance X is 68.5 cm. Determine the value of X. What might you do if you failed to find a balance point with the given cell of emf Ω µ?
- Q:-
(a) Alloys of metals usually have (greater/less) resistivity than that of their constituent metals.
(b) Alloys usually have much (lower/higher) temperature coefficients of resistance than pure metals.
(c) The resistivity of the alloy manganin is nearly independent of/increases rapidly with increase of temperature.
(d) The resistivity of a typical insulator (e.g., amber) is greater than that of a metal by a factor of the order of (1022/103).
- Q:-
A heating element using nichrome connected to a 230 V supply draws an initial current of 3.2 A which settles after a few seconds to a steady value of 2.8 A. What is the steady temperature of the heating element if the room temperature is 27.0 °C? Temperature coefficient of resistance of nichrome averaged over the temperature range involved is 1.70 x 10-4 °C -1.
- Q:-
A solenoid 60 cm long and of radius 4.0 cm has 3 layers of windings of 300 turns each. A 2.0 cm long wire of mass 2.5 g lies inside the solenoid (near its centre) normal to its axis; both the wire and the axis of the solenoid are in the horizontal plane. The wire is connected through two leads parallel to the axis of the solenoid to an external battery which supplies a current of 6.0 A in the wire. What value of current (with appropriate sense of circulation) in the windings of the solenoid can support the weight of the wire? g = 9.8 m s-2
- Q:-
Two point charges qA = 3 μC and qB = −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?
- Q:-
Two large, thin metal plates are parallel and close to each other. On their inner faces, the plates have surface charge densities of opposite signs and of magnitude 17.0 × 10−22 C/m2. What is E:
(a) in the outer region of the first plate,
(b) in the outer region of the second plate, and
(c) between the plates?
- Q:-
A modulating signal is a square wave, as shown in Fig. 15.14.
The carrier wave is given by
(i) Sketch the amplitude modulated waveform
(ii) What is the modulation index?
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