Class 12 Physics - Chapter Electrostatic Potential and Capacitance NCERT Solutions | A spherical capacitor has an inner spher

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 parallel plate capacitor with air between the plates has a capacitance of 8 pF (1pF = 10^-12 F). What will be the capacitance if the distance between the plates is reduced by half, and the space between them is filled with a substance of dielectric constant 6?

A regular hexagon of side 10 cm has a charge 5 µC at each of its vertices. Calculate the potential at the centre of the hexagon.

Three capacitors of capacitances 2 pF, 3 pF and 4 pF are connected in parallel.

(a) What is the total capacitance of the combination?

(b) Determine the charge on each capacitor if the combination is connected to a 100 V supply.

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.

A cube of side b has a charge q at each of its vertices. Determine the potential and electric field due to this charge array at the centre of the cube.

A 12 pF capacitor is connected to a 50V battery. How much electrostatic energy is stored in the capacitor?

Two tiny spheres carrying charges 1.5 μC and 2.5 μC are located 30 cm apart. Find the potential and electric field:

(a) at the mid-point of the line joining the two charges, and

(b) at a point 10 cm from this midpoint in a plane normal to the line and passing through the mid-point.

A spherical conducting shell of inner radius r1 and outer radius r2 has a charge Q.

(a) A charge q is placed at the centre of the shell. What is the surface charge density on the inner and outer surfaces of the shell?

(b) Is the electric field inside a cavity (with no charge) zero, even if the shell is not spherical, but has any irregular shape? Explain.

A charge of 8 mC is located at the origin. Calculate the work done in taking a small charge of -2 x 10^-9 C from a point P (0, 0, 3 cm) to a point Q (0, 4 cm, 0), via a point R (0, 6 cm, 9 cm).

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?

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.

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.

What is the de Broglie wavelength of

(a) a bullet of mass 0.040 kg travelling at the speed of 1.0 km/s,

(b) a ball of mass 0.060 kg moving at a speed of 1.0 m/s, and

(c) a dust particle of mass 1.0 × 10⁻⁹ kg drifting with a speed of 2.2 m/s?

A difference of 2.3 eV separates two energy levels in an atom. What is the frequency of radiation emitted when the atom makes a transition from the upper level to the lower level?

The wavelength of light from the spectral emission line of sodium is 589 nm. Find the kinetic energy at which

(a) an electron, and

(b) a neutron, would have the same de Broglie wavelength.

(a) A conductor A with a cavity as shown in Fig. 1.36 (a) is given a charge Q. Show that the entire charge must appear on the outer surface of the conductor.

( b) Another conductor B with charge q is inserted into the cavity keeping B insulated from A. Show that the total charge on the outside surface of A is Q + q [Fig. 1.36(b)].

(c) A sensitive instrument is to be shielded from the strong electrostatic fields in its environment. Suggest a possible way.

Frequencies in the UHF range normally propagate by means of

(a) Ground waves.

(b) Sky waves.

(c) Surface waves.

(d) Space waves.

For a circular coil of radius R and N turns carrying current I, the magnitude of the magnetic field at a point on its axis at a distance x from its centre is given by,

(a) Show that this reduces to the familiar result for field at the centre of the coil.

(b) Consider two parallel co-axial circular coils of equal radius R, and number of turns N, carrying equal currents in the same direction, and separated by a distance R. Show that the field on the axis around the mid-point between the coils is uniform over a distance that is small as compared to R, and is given by,

, approximately.

[Such an arrangement to produce a nearly uniform magnetic field over a small region is known as Helmholtz coils.]

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

A magnetic dipole is under the influence of two magnetic fields. The angle between the field directions is 60º, and one of the fields has a magnitude of 1.2 x 10^-2T. If the dipole comes to stable equilibrium at an angle of 15º with this field, what is the magnitude of the other field?

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?