Two vessels have the same base area but different shapes. The first vessel takes twice the volume of water that the second vessel requires to fill upto a particular common height. Is the force exerted by the water on the base of the vessel the same in the two cases? If so, why do the vessels filled with water to that same height give different readings on a weighing scale?
Yes
Two vessels having the same base area have identical force and equal pressure acting on their common base area. Since the shapes of the two vessels are different, the force exerted on the sides of the vessels has non-zero vertical components. When these vertical components are added, the total force on one vessel comes out to be greater than that on the other vessel. Hence, when these vessels are filled with water to the same height, they give different readings on a weighing scale.
Explain why
(a) To keep a piece of paper horizontal, you should blow over, not under, it
(b) When we try to close a water tap with our fingers, fast jets of water gush through the openings between our fingers
(c) The size of the needle of a syringe controls flow rate better than the thumb pressure exerted by a doctor while administering an injection
(d) A fluid flowing out of a small hole in a vessel results in a backward thrust on the vessel
(e) A spinning cricket ball in air does not follow a parabolic trajectory
A 50 kg girl wearing high heel shoes balances on a single heel. The heel is circular with a diameter 1.0 cm. What is the pressure exerted by the heel on the horizontal floor?
A hydraulic automobile lift is designed to lift cars with a maximum mass of 3000 kg. The area of cross-section of the piston carrying the load is 425 cm2. What maximum pressure would the smaller piston have to bear?
A vertical off-shore structure is built to withstand a maximum stress of 109 Pa. Is the structure suitable for putting up on top of an oil well in the ocean? Take the depth of the ocean to be roughly 3 km, and ignore ocean currents.
Fill in the blanks using the word(s) from the list appended with each statement:
(a) Surface tension of liquids generally . . . with temperatures (increases / decreases)
(b) Viscosity of gases. .. with temperature, whereas viscosity of liquids . . . with temperature (increases / decreases)
(c) For solids with elastic modulus of rigidity, the shearing force is proportional to . . . , while for fluids it is proportional to . .. (shear strain / rate of shear strain)
(d) For a fluid in a steady flow, the increase in flow speed at a constriction follows (conservation of mass / Bernoulli's principle)
(e) For the model of a plane in a wind tunnel, turbulence occurs at a ... speed for turbulence for an actual plane (greater / smaller)
Toricelli's barometer used mercury. Pascal duplicated it using French wine of density 984 kg m-3. Determine the height of the wine column for normal atmospheric pressure.
Does it matter if one uses gauge instead of absolute pressures in applying Bernoulli's equation? Explain.
In deriving Bernoulli's equation, we equated the work done on the fluid in the tube to its change in the potential and kinetic energy. (a) What is the largest average velocity of blood flow in an artery of diameter 2 x 10-3 m if the flow must remain laminar? (b) Do the dissipative forces become more important as the fluid velocity increases? Discuss qualitatively.
During blood transfusion the needle is inserted in a vein where the gauge pressure is 2000 Pa. At what height must the blood container be placed so that blood may just enter the vein? [Use the density of whole blood from Table 10.1].
Some of the most profound statements on the nature of science have come from Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time. What do you think did Einstein mean when he said : “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible”?
The sign of work done by a force on a body is important to understand. State carefully if the following quantities are positive or negative:
(a) work done by a man in lifting a bucket out of a well by means of a rope tied to the bucket.
(b) work done by gravitational force in the above case,
(c) work done by friction on a body sliding down an inclined plane,
(d) work done by an applied force on a body moving on a rough horizontal plane with uniform velocity,
(e) work done by the resistive force of air on a vibrating pendulum in bringing it to rest.
A geyser heats water flowing at the rate of 3.0 litres per minute from 27 °C to 77 °C. If the geyser operates on a gas burner, what is the rate of consumption of the fuel if its heat of combustion is 4.0 x 104 J/g?
Estimate the fraction of molecular volume to the actual volume occupied by oxygen gas at STP. Take the diameter of an oxygen molecule to be 3Å.
It is claimed that two cesium clocks, if allowed to run for 100 years, free from any disturbance, may differ by only about 0.02 s. What does this imply for the accuracy of the standard cesium clock in measuring a time-interval of 1 s?
A string of mass 2.50 kg is under a tension of 200 N. The length of the stretched string is 20.0 m. If the transverse jerk is struck at one end of the string, how long does the disturbance take to reach the other end?
Answer the following:
(a) You are given a thread and a metre scale. How will you estimate the diameter of the thread?
(b) A screw gauge has a pitch of 1.0 mm and 200 divisions on the circular scale. Do you think it is possible to increase the accuracy of the screw gauge arbitrarily by increasing the number of divisions on the circular scale?
(c) The mean diameter of a thin brass rod is to be measured by vernier callipers. Why is a set of 100 measurements of the diameter expected to yield a more reliable estimate than a set of 5 measurements only?
A pump on the ground floor of a building can pump up water to fill a tank of volume 30 m3 in 15 min. If the tank is 40 m above the ground, and the efficiency of the pump is 30%, how much electric power is consumed by the pump?
A block of mass 15 kg is placed on a long trolley. The coefficient of static friction between the block and the trolley is 0.18. The trolley accelerates from rest with 0.5 ms-2 for 20 s and then moves with uniform velocity. Discuss the motion of the block as viewed by (a) a stationary observer on the ground, (b) an observer moving with the trolley.
A famous relation in physics relates 'moving mass' m to the 'rest mass' m0 of a particle in terms of its speed v and the speed of light, c. (This relation first arose as a consequence of special relativity due to Albert Einstein). A boy recalls the relation almost correctly but forgets where to put the constant c. He writes:
m = m0 / (1-v2)½
The shells of crabs found around a particular coastal location in Japan seem mostly to resemble the legendary face of a Samurai. Given below are two explanations of this observed fact. Which of these strikes you as a scientific explanation ?
(a) A tragic sea accident several centuries ago drowned a young Samurai. As a tribute to his bravery, nature through its inscrutable ways immortalised his face by imprinting it on the crab shells in that area.
(b) After the sea tragedy, fishermen in that area, in a gesture of honour to their dead hero, let free any crab shell caught by them which accidentally had a shape resembling the face of a Samurai. Consequently, the particular shape of the crab shell survived longer and therefore in course of time the shape was genetically propagated. This is an example of evolution by artificial selection.
[Note : This interesting illustration taken from Carl Sagan’s ‘The Cosmos’ highlights the fact that often strange and inexplicable facts which on the first sight appear ‘supernatural’ actually turn out to have simple scientific explanations. Try to think out other examples of this kind].
A passenger arriving in a new town wishes to go from the station to a hotel located 10 km away on a straight road from the station. A dishonest cabman takes him along a circuitous path 23 km long and reaches the hotel in 28 min. What is
(a) the average speed of the taxi,
(b) the magnitude of average velocity? Are the two equal?
A player throws a ball upwards with an initial speed of 29.4 m s–1. What is the direction of acceleration during the upward motion of the ball? What are the velocity and acceleration of the ball at the highest point of its motion?
Choose the x = 0 m and t = 0 s to be the location and time of the ball at its highest point, vertically downward direction to be the positive direction of x-axis, and give the signs of position, velocity and acceleration of the ball during its upward, and downward motion. To what height does the ball rise and after how long does the ball return to the player’s hands? (Take g = 9.8 m s–2 and neglect air resistance).
A person trying to lose weight (dieter) lifts a 10 kg mass, one thousand times, to a height of 0.5 m each time. Assume that the potential energy lost each time she lowers the mass is dissipated. (a) How much work does she do against the gravitational force? (b) Fat supplies 3.8 x 107 J of energy per kilogram which is converted to mechanical energy with a 20% efficiency rate. How much fat will the dieter use up?