Class 11 Physics - Chapter System of Particles and Rotational Motion NCERT Solutions | Give the location of the centre of mass

A child sits stationary at one end of a long trolley moving uniformly with a speed V on a smooth horizontal floor. If the child gets up and runs about on the trolley in any manner, what is the speed of the CM of the (trolley + child) system?

To maintain a rotor at a uniform angular speed of 200 rad s^–1, an engine needs to transmit a torque of 180 Nm. What is the power required by the engine?

(Note: uniform angular velocity in the absence of friction implies zero torque. In practice, applied torque is needed to counter frictional torque). Assume that the engine is 100 % efficient.

(a) A child stands at the centre of a turntable with his two arms outstretched. The turntable is set rotating with an angular speed of 40 rev/min. How much is the angular speed of the child if he folds his hands back and thereby reduces his moment of inertia to 2/5 times the initial value? Assume that the turntable rotates without friction.

(b) Show that the child’s new kinetic energy of rotation is more than the initial kinetic energy of rotation. How do you account for this increase in kinetic energy?

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

(a) During rolling, the force of friction acts in the same direction as the direction of motion of the CM of the body.

(b) The instantaneous speed of the point of contact during rolling is zero.

(c) The instantaneous acceleration of the point of contact during rolling is zero.

(d) For perfect rolling motion, work done against friction is zero.

(e) A wheel moving down a perfectly frictionless inclined plane will undergo slipping (not rolling) motion.

A rope of negligible mass is wound round a hollow cylinder of mass 3 kg and radius 40 cm. What is the angular acceleration of the cylinder if the rope is pulled with a force of 30 N? What is the linear acceleration of the rope? Assume that there is no slipping.

A solid cylinder of mass 20 kg rotates about its axis with angular speed 100 rad s^-1. The radius of the cylinder is 0.25 m. What is the kinetic energy associated with the rotation of the cylinder? What is the magnitude of angular momentum of the cylinder about its axis?

Torques of equal magnitude are applied to a hollow cylinder and a solid sphere, both having the same mass and radius. The cylinder is free to rotate about its standard axis of symmetry, and the sphere is free to rotate about an axis passing through its centre. Which of the two will acquire a greater angular speed after a given time?

A hoop of radius 2 m weighs 100 kg. It rolls along a horizontal floor so that its centre of mass has a speed of 20 cm/s. How much work has to be done to stop it?

Explain why friction is necessary to make the disc in Fig. 7.41 roll in the direction indicated.

(a) Give the direction of frictional force at B, and the sense of frictional torque, before perfect rolling begins.

(b) What is the force of friction after perfect rolling begins?

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.

When the planet Jupiter is at a distance of 824.7 million kilometers from the Earth, its angular diameter is measured to be 35.72" of arc. Calculate the diameter of Jupiter.

A steel rod 100 cm long is clamped at its middle. The fundamental frequency of longitudinal vibrations of the rod is given to be 2.53 kHz. What is the speed of sound in steel?

A transverse harmonic wave on a string is described by

y(x,t)  =  3.0 sin [36t + 0.018x + π /4]

Where x and y are in cm and t in s. The positive direction of x is from left to right.

(a) Is this a travelling wave or a stationary wave? If it is travelling, what are the speed and direction of its propagation?

(b) What are its amplitude and frequency?

(c) What is the initial phase at the origin?

(d) What is the least distance between two successive crests in the wave?

A shell of mass 0.020 kg is fired by a gun of mass 100 kg. If the muzzle speed of the shell is 80 ms^-1, what is the recoil speed of the gun?

A constant force acting on a body of mass 3.0 kg changes its speed from 2.0 m s^–1 to 3.5 m s^–1 in 25 s. The direction of the motion of the body remains unchanged. What is the magnitude and direction of the force?

One end of a string of length l is connected to a particle of mass m and the other to a small peg on a smooth horizontal table. If the particle moves in a circle with speed v the net force on the particle (directed towards the centre) is:

(i) T, (ii) T - mv² / l , (iii) T + mv² / l , (iv) 0

T is the tension in the string. [Choose the correct alternative].

“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.

Textbooks on science may give you a wrong impression that studying science is dry and all too serious and that scientists are absent-minded introverts who never laugh or grin. This image of science and scientists is patently false. Scientists, like any other group of humans, have their share of humorists, and many have led their lives with a great sense of fun and adventure, even as they seriously pursued their scientific work. Two great physicists of this genre are Gamow and Feynman. You will enjoy reading their books listed in the Bibliography.

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].