Class 12 Physics - Chapter Electromagnetic Waves NCERT Solutions | A charged particle oscillates about its

A plane electromagnetic wave travels in vacuum along z-direction. What can you say about the directions of its electric and magnetic field vectors? If the frequency of the wave is 30 MHz, what is its wavelength?

The amplitude of the magnetic field part of a harmonic electromagnetic wave in vacuum is B₀ = 510 nT. What is the amplitude of the electric field part of the wave?

Answer the following questions:

(a) Long distance radio broadcasts use short-wave bands. Why?

(b) It is necessary to use satellites for long distance TV transmission. Why?

(c) Optical and radio telescopes are built on the ground but X-ray astronomy is possible only from satellites orbiting the earth. Why?

(d) The small ozone layer on top of the stratosphere is crucial for human survival. Why?

(e) If the earth did not have an atmosphere, would its average surface temperature be higher or lower than what it is now?

(f) Some scientists have predicted that a global nuclear war on the earth would be followed by a severe ‘nuclear winter’ with a devastating effect on life on earth. What might be the basis of this prediction?

Figure 8.6 shows a capacitor made of two circular plates each of radius 12 cm, and separated by 5.0 cm. The capacitor is being charged by an external source (not shown in the figure). The charging current is constant and equal to 0.15 A.

(a) Calculate the capacitance and the rate of charge of potential difference between the plates.

(b) Obtain the displacement current across the plates.

(c) Is Kirchhoff’s first rule (junction rule) valid at each plate of the capacitor? Explain.

Answer the following questions regarding earth's magnetism:

(a) A vector needs three quantities for its specification. Name the three independent quantities conventionally used to specify the earth's magnetic field.

(b) The angle of dip at a location in southern India is about 18º.

Would you expect a greater or smaller dip angle in Britain?

(c) If you made a map of magnetic field lines at Melbourne in Australia, would the lines seem to go into the ground or come out of the ground?

(d) In which direction would a compass free to move in the vertical plane point to, if located right on the geomagnetic north or south pole?

(e) The earth's field, it is claimed, roughly approximates the field due to a dipole of magnetic moment 8 x 1022 J T^-1 located at its centre. Check the order of magnitude of this number in some way.

(f ) Geologists claim that besides the main magnetic N-S poles, there are several local poles on the earth's surface oriented in different directions. How is such a thing possible at all?

(a) Two stable isotopes of lithium 6Li3 and7Li3 have respective abundances of 7.5% and 92.5%. These isotopes have masses 6.01512 u and 7.01600 u, respectively. Find the atomic mass of lithium.

(b) Boron has two stable isotopes, ¹⁰B₅ and ¹¹B₅ . Their respective masses are 10.01294 u and 11.00931 u, and the atomic mass of boron is 10.811 u. Find the abundances of  ¹⁰B₅ and ¹¹B₅.

A small candle, 2.5 cm in size is placed at 27 cm in front of a concave mirror of radius of curvature 36 cm. At what distance from the mirror should a screen be placed in order to obtain a sharp image? Describe the nature and size of the image. If the candle is moved closer to the mirror, how would the screen have to be moved?

What is the force between two small charged spheres having charges of 2 x 10^-7 C and 3 x 10^-7 C placed 30 cm apart in air?

Monochromatic light of wavelength 589 nm is incident from air on a water surface. What are the wavelength, frequency and speed of
(a) reflected, and
(b) refracted light? Refractive index of water is 1.33.

Two charges 5 x 10^-8 C and -3 x 10^-8 C are located 16 cm apart. At what point(s) on the line joining the two charges is the electric potential zero? Take the potential at infinity to be zero.

Figure shows a potentiometer with a cell of 2.0 V and internal resistance 0.40 Ω  maintaining a potential drop across the resistor wire AB. A standard cell which maintains a constant emf of 1.02 V (for very moderate currents up to a few mA) gives a balance point at 67.3 cm length of the wire. To ensure very low currents drawn from the standard cell, a very high resistance of 600 kΩ  is put in series with it, which is shorted close to the balance point. The standard cell is then replaced by a cell of unknown emf Ωµ and the balance point found similarly, turns out to be at 82.3 cm length of the wire.

(a) What is the value Ωµ ?

(b) What purpose does the high resistance of 600 kΩ  have?

(c) Is the balance point affected by this high resistance?

(d) Is the balance point affected by the internal resistance of the driver cell?

(e) Would the method work in the above situation if the driver cell of the potentiometer had an emf of 1.0 V instead of 2.0 V?

(f ) Would the circuit work well for determining an extremely small emf, say of the order of a few mV (such as the typical emf of a thermo-couple)? If not, how will you modify the circuit?

Careful measurement of the electric field at the surface of a black box indicates that the net outward flux through the surface of the box is 8.0 × 103 N m2/C.

(a) What is the net charge inside the box?

(b) If the net outward flux through the surface of the box were zero, could you conclude that there were no charges inside the box? Why or Why not?

A 600 pF capacitor is charged by a 200 V supply. It is then disconnected from the supply and is connected to another uncharged 600 pF capacitor. How much electrostatic energy is lost in the process?

A long charged cylinder of linear charged density λ is surrounded by a hollow co-axial conducting cylinder. What is the electric field in the space between the two cylinders?

At room temperature (27.0 °C) the resistance of a heating element is 100 Ω. What is the temperature of the element if the resistance is found to be 117 Ω, given that the temperature coefficient of the material of the resistor is 1.70 x 10^-4 °C^-1

The electrostatic force on a small sphere of charge 0.4 μC due to another small sphere of charge − 0.8 μC in air is 0.2 N.

(a) What is the distance between the two spheres?

(b) What is the force on the second sphere due to the first?

Suppose the spheres A and B in Exercise 1.12 have identical sizes. A third sphere of the same size but uncharged is brought in contact with the first, then brought in contact with the second, and finally removed from both. What is the new force of repulsion between A and B?

A magnetic field of 100 G (1 G = 10^-4 T) is required which is uniform in a region of linear dimension about 10 cm and area of cross-section about 10^-3 m². The maximum current-carrying capacity of a given coil of wire is 15 A and the number of turns per unit length that can be wound round a core is at most 1000 turns  m^-1. Suggest some appropriate design particulars of a solenoid for the required purpose. Assume the core is not ferromagnetic

If the bar magnet in exercise 5.13 is turned around by 180º, wherewill the new null points be located?

For sound waves, the Doppler formula for frequency shift differs slightly between the two situations:

(i) source at rest; observer moving, and

(ii) source moving; observer at rest.

The exact Doppler formulas for the case of light waves in vacuum are, however, strictly identical for these situations. Explain why this should be so. Would you expect the formulas to be strictly identical for the two situations in case of light travelling in a medium?