Class 11 Physics - Chapter Motion in a straight Line NCERT Solutions | Figure 3.23 gives the x-t plot of a part

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.

“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.

The motion of a body in simple harmonic motion is given by the displacement function,

x (t) = A cos (ωt + φ).

Given that at t = 0, the initial velocity of the body is ω cm/s and its initial position is 1 cm, calculate its initial phase angle and amplitude?

If in place of the cosine function, a sine function is used to represent the simple harmonic motion:

x = B sin (ωt + α),

calculate the body’s amplitude and initial phase considering the initial conditions given above. [Angular frequency of the particle is π/ s]

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)

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?

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?

An electric heater supplies heat to a system at a rate of 100W. If system performs work at a rate of 75 Joules per second. At what rate is the internal energy increasing?

For the wave described in Exercise 15.8, plot the displacement (y) versus (t) graphs for x = 0, 2 and 4 cm. What are the shapes of these graphs? In which aspects does the oscillatory motion in travelling wave differ from one point to another: amplitude, frequency or phase?

A pipe 20 cm long is closed at one end. Which harmonic mode of the pipe is resonantly excited by a 430 Hz source? Will the same source be in resonance with the pipe if both ends are open? (Speed of sound in air is 340 m s^-1).

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.

Read each statement below carefully and state, with reasons, if it is true or false:

(a) The net acceleration of a particle in circular motion is always along the radius of the circle towards the centre

(b) The velocity vector of a particle at a point is always along the tangent to the path of the particle at that point

(c) The acceleration vector of a particle in uniform circular motion averaged over one cycle is a null vector