Class 11 Physics - Chapter Motion in a straight Line NCERT Solutions | On a two-lane road, car A is travelling

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].

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?

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.

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?

The nearest star to our solar system is 4.29 light years away. How much is this distance in terms of parsecs? How much parallax would this star (named Alpha Centauri) show when viewed from two locations of the Earth six months apart in its orbit around the Sun?

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 position of a particle is given by

Where t is in seconds and the coefficients have the proper units for r to be in meters.

(a) Find the v and a of the particle?

(b) What is the magnitude and direction of velocity of the particle at t = 2.0 s?

The principle of ‘parallax’ in section 2.3.1 is used in the determination of distances of very distant stars. The baseline AB is the line joining the Earth’s two locations six months apart in its orbit around the Sun. That is, the baseline is about the diameter of the Earth’s orbit ≈ 3 × 10¹¹m. However, even the nearest stars are so distant that with such a long baseline, they show parallax only of the order of 1” (second) of arc or so. A parsec is a convenient unit of length on the astronomical scale. It is the distance of an object that will show a parallax of 1” (second) of arc from opposite ends of a baseline equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun. How much is a parsec in terms of metres ?

What amount of heat must be supplied to 2.0 x 10^-2 kg of nitrogen (at room temperature) to raise its temperature by 45 °C at constant pressure? (Molecular mass of N² = 28; R = 8.3 J mol^-1 K^-1.)

Explain why

(a) To keep a piece of paper horizontal, you should blow over, not under, it

(b) When we try to close a water tap with our fingers, fast jets of water gush through the openings between our fingers

(c) The size of the needle of a syringe controls flow rate better than the thumb pressure exerted by a doctor while administering an injection

(d) A fluid flowing out of a small hole in a vessel results in a backward thrust on the vessel

(e) A spinning cricket ball in air does not follow a parabolic trajectory

For any arbitrary motion in space, which of the following relations are true :

(a) v_average = (1/2) (v (t₁) + v (t₂))

(b) v_average = [r(t₂) - r(t₁) ] / (t₂ – t₁)

(c) v_(t) = v (0) + a t

(d) r_(t) = r (0) + v (0) t + (1/2) a t²

(e) a_average =[ v (t₂) - v (t₁ )] /( t₂ – t₁)

(The ‘average’ stands for average of the quantity over the time interval t₁ to t₂)

A calorie is a unit of heat or energy and it equals about 4.2 J where 1J = 1 kg m²s^–2. Suppose we employ a system of units in which the unit of mass equals α kg, the unit of length equals β  m, the unit of time is γ s. Show that a calorie has a magnitude 4.2 α^–1 β^{– 2} γ² in terms of the new units.

The length, breadth and thickness of a rectangular sheet of metal are 4.234 m, 1.005 m, and 2.01 cm respectively. Give the area and volume of the sheet to correct significant figures.