Class 11 Physics Motion in a straight Line: NCERT Solutions for Question 27

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!]

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 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].

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.

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?

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?

State if each of the following statements is true or false. Give reasons for your answer.

(a) In an elastic collision of two bodies, the momentum and energy of each body is conserved.

(b) Total energy of a system is always conserved, no matter what internal and external forces on the body are present.

(c) Work done in the motion of a body over a closed loop is zero for every force in nature.

(d) In an inelastic collision, the final kinetic energy is always less than the initial kinetic energy of the system.

For the travelling harmonic wave

y (x, t) = 2.0 cos 2π (10t - 0.0080 x + 0.35)

Where x and y are in cm and t in s. Calculate the phase difference between oscillatory motion of two points separated by a distance of

(a) 4 m,

(b) 0.5 m,

(c) λ / 2 ,

(d) 3λ / 4

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).

A comet orbits the Sun in a highly elliptical orbit. Does the comet have a constant

(a) linear speed,

(b) angular speed,

(c) angular momentum,

(d) kinetic energy,

(e) potential energy,

(f) total energy throughout its orbit?

Neglect any mass loss of the comet when it comes very close to the Sun.

A narrow sound pulse (for example, a short pip by a whistle) is sent across a medium.

(a) Does the pulse have a definite (i) frequency, (ii) wavelength, (iii) speed of propagation?

(b) If the pulse rate is 1 after every 20 s, (that is the whistle is blown for a split of second after every 20 s), is the frequency of the note produced by the whistle equal to or 0.05 Hz?

A physical quantity P is related to four observables a, b, c and d as follows :

The percentage errors of measurement in a, b, c and d are 1%, 3%, 4% and 2%, respectively. What is the percentage error in the quantity P ? If the value of P calculated using the above relation turns out to be 3.763, to what value should you round off the result ?

The mass of a box measured by a grocer's balance is 2.300 kg. Two gold pieces of masses 20.15 g and 20.17 g are added to the box. What is

(a) the total mass of the box,

(b) the difference in the masses of the pieces to correct significant figures?