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?
Mass of the girl, m = 50 kg
Diameter of the heel, d = 1 cm = 0.01 m
Radius of the heel, r = d / 2 = 0.005 m
Area of the heel = πr2
= π (0.005)2
= 7.85 × 10-5 m2
Force exerted by the heel on the floor:
F = mg
= 50 × 9.8 = 490 N
Pressure exerted by the heel on the floor:
P = Force / Area
= 490 / 7.85 x 10-5
= 6.24 × 106 N m-2
Therefore, the pressure exerted by the heel on the horizontal floor is 6.24 × 106 Nm-2.
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 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.
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?
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.
A rocket with a lift-off mass 20,000 kg is blasted upwards with an initial acceleration of 5.0 m s–2. Calculate the initial thrust (force) of the blast.
“Every great physical theory starts as a heresy and ends as a dogma”. Give some examples from the history of science of the validity of this incisive remark.
Ten one-rupee coins are put on top of each other on a table. Each coin has a mass m. Give the magnitude and direction of
(a) the force on the 7th coin (counted from the bottom) due to all the coins on its top,
(b) the force on the 7th coin by the eighth coin,
(c) the reaction of the 6th coin on the 7th coin.
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.
Two stones are thrown up simultaneously from the edge of a cliff 200 m high with initial speeds of 15 m s–1 and 30 m s–1. Verify that the graph shown in Fig. 3.27 correctly represents the time variation of the relative position of the second stone with respect to the first. Neglect air resistance and assume that the stones do not rebound after hitting the ground. Take g = 10 m s–2. Give the equations for the linear and curved parts of the plot.
An aircraft executes a horizontal loop of radius 1.00 km with a steady speed of 900 km/h. Compare its centripetal acceleration with the acceleration due to gravity.
(i) For the wave on a string described in Exercise 15.11, do all the points on the string oscillate with the same (a) frequency, (b) phase, (c) amplitude? Explain your answers.
(ii) What is the amplitude of a point 0.375 m away from one end?
A shell of mass 0.020 kg is fired by a gun of mass 100 kg. If the muzzle speed of the shell is 80 ms-1, what is the recoil speed of the gun?
A book with many printing errors contains four different formulas for the displacement y of a particle undergoing a certain periodic motion:
(a = maximum displacement of the particle, v = speed of the particle. T = time-period of motion). Rule out the wrong formulas on dimensional grounds.
Molar volume is the volume occupied by 1 mol of any (ideal) gas at standard temperature and pressure (STP: 1 atmospheric pressure, 0 °C). Show that it is 22.4 litres.