Class 12 Physics - Chapter Wave Optics NCERT Solutions | In a Young’s double-slit experimen

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 shape of the wavefront in each of the following cases:

(a) Light diverging from a point source.

(b) Light emerging out of a convex lens when a point source is placed at its focus.

(c) The portion of the wavefront of light from a distant star intercepted by the Earth.

In double-slit experiment using light of wavelength 600 nm, the angular width of a fringe formed on a distant screen is 0.1^o. What is the spacing between the two slits?

 Light of wavelength 5000 Å falls on a plane reflecting surface. What are the wavelength and frequency of the reflected light? For what angle of incidence is the reflected ray normal to the incident ray?

A beam of light consisting of two wavelengths, 650 nm and 520 nm, is used to obtain interference fringes in a Young’s double-slit experiment.

(a) Find the distance of the third bright fringe on the screen from the central maximum for wavelength 650 nm.

(b) What is the least distance from the central maximum where the bright fringes due to both the wavelengths coincide?

 Estimate the distance for which ray optics is good approximation for an aperture of 4 mm and wavelength 400 nm.

In Young’s double-slit experiment using monochromatic light of wavelength λ, the intensity of light at a point on the screen where path difference is λ, is K units. What is the intensity of light at a point where path difference is λ /3?

A parallel beam of light of wavelength 500 nm falls on a narrow slit and the resulting diffraction pattern is observed on a screen 1 m away. It is observed that the first minimum is at a distance of 2.5 mm from the centre of the screen. Find the width of the slit.

What is the Brewster angle for air to glass transition? (Refractive index of glass = 1.5.)

Two towers on top of two hills are 40 km apart. The line joining them passes 50 m above a hill halfway between the towers. What is the longest wavelength of radio waves, which can be sent between the towers without appreciable diffraction effects?

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?

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 parallel plate capacitor is to be designed with a voltage rating 1 kV, using a material of dielectric constant 3 and dielectric strength about 10⁷ Vm^-1. (Dielectric strength is the maximum electric field a material can tolerate without breakdown, i.e., without starting to conduct electricity through partial ionisation.) For safety, we should like the field never to exceed, say 10% of the dielectric strength. What minimum area of the plates is required to have a capacitance of 50 pF?

If one of the two electrons of a H₂ molecule is removed, we get a hydrogen molecular ion H₂⁺. In the ground state of an H₂⁺, the two protons are separated by roughly 1.5 Å, and the electron is roughly 1 Å, from each proton. Determine the potential energy of the system. Specify your choice of the zero of potential energy.

A battery of emf 10 V and internal resistance 3 Ω is connected to a resistor. If the current in the circuit is 0.5 A, what is the resistance of the resistor? What is the terminal voltage of the battery when the circuit is closed?

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

 In Exercise, obtain the frequency of revolution of the electron in its circular orbit. Does the answer depend on the speed of the electron? Explain.

Figure 2.34 shows a charge array known as an electric quadrupole. For a point on the axis of the quadrupole, obtain the dependence of potential on r for r/a >> 1, and contrast your results with that due to an electric dipole, and an electric monopole (i.e., a single charge).

A spherical capacitor has an inner sphere of radius 12 cm and an outer sphere of radius 13 cm. The outer sphere is earthed and the inner sphere is given a charge of 2.5 µC. The space between the concentric spheres is filled with a liquid of dielectric constant 32.

(a) Determine the capacitance of the capacitor.

(b) What is the potential of the inner sphere?

(c) Compare the capacitance of this capacitor with that of an isolated sphere of radius 12 cm. Explain why the latter is much smaller.

The photoelectric cut-off voltage in a certain experiment is 1.5 V. What is the maximum kinetic energy of photoelectrons emitted?

(a) A circular coil of 30 turns and radius 8.0 cm carrying a current of 6.0 A is suspended vertically in a uniform horizontal magnetic field of magnitude 1.0 T. The field lines make an angle of 60º with the normal of the coil. Calculate the magnitude of the counter torque that must be applied to prevent the coil from turning.

(b) Would your answer change, if the circular coil in (a) were replaced by a planar coil of some irregular shape that encloses the same area? (All other particulars are also unaltered.)

A short bar magnet of magnetic moment 5.25 x 10^-2J T^-1is placed with its axis perpendicular to the earth's field direction. At what distance from the centre of the magnet, the resultant field is inclined at 45º with earth's field on

(a) its normal bisector and (b) its axis. Magnitude of the earth's field at the place is given to be 0.42 G. Ignore the length of the magnet in comparison to the distances involved.