The position-time (x-t) graphs for two children A and B returning from their school O to their homes P and Q respectively are shown in Fig. 3.19. Choose the correct entries in the brackets below;
(a) (A/B) lives closer to the school than (B/A)
(b) (A/B) starts from the school earlier than (B/A)
(c) (A/B) walks faster than (B/A)
(d) A and B reach home at the (same/different) time
(e) (A/B) overtakes (B/A) on the road (once/twice).
(a) A lives closer to school than B.
(b) A starts from school earlier than B.
(c) B walks faster than A.
(d) A and B reach home at the same time.
(e) B overtakes A once on the road.
Explanation:
(a) In the given x-t graph, it can be observed that distance OP < OQ. Hence, the distance of school from the A's home is less than that from B's home.
(b) In the given graph, it can be observed that for x = 0, t = 0 for A, whereas for x = 0, t has some finite value for B. Thus, A starts his journey from school earlier than B.
(c) In the given x-t graph, it can be observed that the slope of B is greater than that of A. Since the slope of the x-t graph gives the speed, a greater slope means that the speed of B is greater than the speed A.
(d) It is clear from the given graph that both A and B reach their respective homes at the same time.
(e) B moves later than A and his/her speed is greater than that of A. From the graph, it is clear that B overtakes A only once on the road.
A drunkard walking in a narrow lane takes 5 steps forward and 3 steps backward, followed again by 5 steps forward and 3 steps backward, and so on. Each step is 1 m long and requires 1 s. Plot the x-t graph of his motion. Determine graphically and otherwise how long the drunkard takes to fall in a pit 13 m away from the start.
A woman starts from her home at 9.00 am, walks with a speed of 5 km h-1 on a straight road up to her office 2.5 km away, stays at the office up to 5.00 pm, and returns home by an auto with a speed of 25 km h-1. Choose suitable scales and plot the x-t graph of her motion.
A ball is dropped from a height of 90 m on a floor. At each collision with the floor, the ball loses one tenth of its speed. Plot the speed-time graph of its motion between t = 0 to 12 s.
A man walks on a straight road from his home to a market 2.5 km away with a speed of 5 km h –1. Finding the market closed, he instantly turns and walks back home with a speed of 7.5 km h–1. What is the
a) magnitude of average velocity, and
b) average speed of the man over the interval of time (i) 0 to 30 min, (ii) 0 to 50 min, (iii) 0 to 40 min?
[Note: You will appreciate from this exercise why it is better to define average speed as total path length divided by time, and not as magnitude of average velocity. You would not like to tell the tired man on his return home that his average speed was zero!]
A car moving along a straight highway with a speed of 126 km h–1 is brought to a stop within a distance of 200 m. What is the retardation of the car (assumed uniform), and how long does it take for the car to stop?
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).
Explain clearly, with examples, the distinction between:
a) magnitude of displacement (sometimes called distance) over an interval of time, and the total length of path covered by a particle over the same interval;
b) magnitude of average velocity over an interval of time, and the average speed over the same interval. [Average speed of a particle over an interval of time is defined as the total path length divided by the time interval]. Show in both (a) and (b) that the second quantity is either greater than or equal to the first.
When is the equality sign true? [For simplicity, consider one-dimensional motion only].
Two towns A and B are connected by a regular bus service with a bus leaving in either direction every T minutes. A man cycling with a speed of 20 km h–1 in the direction A to B notices that a bus goes past him every 18 min in the direction of his motion, and every 6 min in the opposite direction. What is the period T of the bus service and with what speed (assumed constant) do the buses ply on the road?
Read each statement below carefully and state with reasons and examples, if it is true or false; A particle in one-dimensional motion
(a) with zero speed at an instant may have non-zero acceleration at that instant
(b) with zero speed may have non-zero velocity,
(c) with constant speed must have zero acceleration,
(d) with positive value of acceleration mustbe speeding up.
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.
Choose the correct alternative:
(a) If the zero of potential energy is at infinity, the total energy of an orbiting satellite is negative of its kinetic/potential energy.
(b) The energy required to launch an orbiting satellite out of earth’s gravitational influence is more/less than the energy required to project a stationary object at the same height (as the satellite) out of earth’s influence.
You have learnt that a travelling wave in one dimension is represented by a function y = f (x, t) where x and t must appear in the combination x - v t or x + v t, i.e. y = f (x ± v t). Is the converse true? Examine if the following functions for y can possibly represent a travelling wave:
(a) ( x - v t )2
(b) log [ x + vt / x0]
(c) 1 / (x + vt)
The unit of length convenient on the nuclear scale is a fermi : 1 f = 10 - 15 m. Nuclear sizes obey roughly the following empirical relation : r = r0 A1/3
where r is the radius of the nucleus, A its mass number, and r0 is a constant equal to about, 1.2 f. Show that the rule implies that nuclear mass density is nearly constant for different nuclei. Estimate the mass density of sodium nucleus. Compare it with the average mass density of a sodium atom obtained in Exercise. 2.27.
A U-shaped wire is dipped in a soap solution, and removed. The thin soap film formed between the wire and the light slider supports a weight of 1.5 x 10-2 N (which includes the small weight of the slider). The length of the slider is 30 cm. What is the surface tension of the film?
In changing the state of a gas adiabatically from an equilibrium state A to another equilibrium state B, an amount of work equal to 22.3 J is done on the system. If the gas is taken from state A to B via a process in which the net heat absorbed by the system is 9.35 cal, how much is the net work done by the system in the latter case? (Take 1 cal = 4.19 J)
Fill in the blanks
(a) The volume of a cube of side 1 cm is equal to.....m3
(b) The surface area of a solid cylinder of radius 2.0 cm and height 10.0 cm is equal to ... (mm)2
(c) A vehicle moving with a speed of 18 km h–1covers....m in 1 s
(d) The relative density of lead is 11.3. Its density is ....g cm–3 or . ...kg m–3.
Given a + b + c + d = 0, which of the following statements are correct:
(a) a, b, c, and d must each be a null vector,
(b) The magnitude of (a + c) equals the magnitude of (b+ d),
(c) The magnitude of a can never be greater than the sum of the magnitudes of b, c, and d,
(d) b + c must lie in the plane of a and d if a and d are not collinear, and in the line of a and d, if they are collinear?
Read each statement below carefully and state, with reasons and examples, if it is true or false:
A scalar quantity is one that
(a) is conserved in a process
(b) can never take negative values
(c) must be dimensionless
(d) does not vary from one point to another in space
(e) has the same value for observers with different orientations of axes
A SONAR (sound navigation and ranging) uses ultrasonic waves to detect and locate objects under water. In a submarine equipped with a SONAR the time delay between generation of a probe wave and the reception of its echo after reflection from an enemy submarine is found to be 77.0 s. What is the distance of the enemy submarine? (Speed of sound in water = 1450 m s-1).