Class 11 Physics - Chapter Physical World NCERT Solutions | “Every great physical theory start

Attempt to formulate your ‘moral’ views on the practice of science. Imagine yourself stumbling upon a discovery, which has great academic interest but is certain to have nothing but dangerous consequences for the human society. How, if at all, will you resolve your dilemma?

Write in about 1000 words a fiction piece based on your speculation on the science and technology of the twenty-second century.

Though the statement quoted above may be disputed, most physicists do have a feeling that the great laws of physics are at once simple and beautiful. Some of the notable physicists, besides Dirac, who have articulated this feeling, are : Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Chandrasekhar and Feynman. You are urged to make special efforts to get access to the general books and writings by these and other great masters of physics.

(See the Bibliography at the end of this book.) Their writings are truly inspiring !

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].

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”?

“Politics is the art of the possible”. Similarly, “Science is the art of the soluble”. Explain this beautiful aphorism on the nature and practice of science.

No physicist has ever “seen” an electron. Yet, all physicists believe in the existence of electrons. An intelligent but superstitious man advances this analogy to argue that ‘ghosts’ exist even though no one has ‘seen’ one. How will you refute his argument ?

“It is more important to have beauty in the equations of physics than to have them agree with experiments”. The great British physicist P. A. M. Dirac held this view. Criticize this statement. Look out for some equations and results in this book which strike you as beautiful.

Though the law gives women equal status in India, many people hold unscientific views on a woman’s innate nature, capacity and intelligence, and in practice give them a secondary status and role. Demolish this view using scientific arguments, and by quoting examples of great women in science and other spheres; and persuade yourself and others that, given equal opportunity, women are on par with men.

Science, like any knowledge, can be put to good or bad use, depending on the user. Given below are some of the applications of science. Formulate your views on whether the particular application is good, bad or something that cannot be so clearly categorised :

(a) Mass vaccination against small pox to curb and finally eradicate this disease from the population. (This has already been successfully done in India).
(b) Television for eradication of illiteracy and for mass communication of news and ideas.
(c) Prenatal sex determination
(d) Computers for increase in work efficiency
(e) Putting artificial satellites into orbits around the Earth
(f ) Development of nuclear weapons
(g) Development of new and powerful techniques of chemical and biological warfare).
(h) Purification of water for drinking
(i) Plastic surgery
(j ) Cloning

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 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?

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 7^th coin (counted from the bottom) due to all the coins on its top,

(b) the force on the 7^th coin by the eighth coin,

(c) the reaction of the 6^th coin on the 7^th coin.

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.

Earthquakes generate sound waves inside the earth. Unlike a gas, the earth can experience both transverse (S) and longitudinal (P) sound waves. Typically the speed of S wave is about 4.0 km s^-1, and that of P wave is 8.0 km s^-1. A seismograph records P and S waves from an earthquake. The first P wave arrives 4 min before the first S wave. Assuming the waves travel in straight line, at what distance does the earthquake occur?

The blades of a windmill sweep out a circle of area A. (a) If the wind flows at a velocity v perpendicular to the circle, what is the mass of the air passing through it in time t?(b) What is the kinetic energy of the air? (c) Assume that the windmill converts 25% of the wind's energy into electrical energy, and that A = 30 m², v = 36 km/h and the density of air is 1.2 kg m^-3. What is the electrical power produced?

A monkey of mass 40 kg climbs on a rope (Fig. 5.20) which can stand a maximum tension of 600 N. In which of the following cases will the rope break: the monkey

(a) climbs up with an acceleration of 6 m s^-2

(b) climbs down with an acceleration of 4 m s^-2

(c) climbs up with a uniform speed of 5 m s^-1

(d) falls down the rope nearly freely under gravity?

(Ignore the mass of the rope).

Estimate the average thermal energy of a helium atom at

(i) room temperature (27 °C),

(ii) the temperature on the surface of the Sun (6000 K),

(iii) the temperature of 10 million Kelvin (the typical core temperature in the case of a star).

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 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

A man walking briskly in rain with speed v must slant his umbrella forward making an angle θ with the vertical. A student derives the following relation between θ and v : tan θ = v and checks that the relation has a correct limit: as v → 0, θ →0, as expected. (We are assuming there is no strong wind and that the rain falls vertically for a stationary man). Do you think this relation can be correct ? If not, guess the correct relation.