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 cylindrical capacitor has two co-axial cylinders of length 15 cm and radii 1.5 cm and 1.4 cm. The outer cylinder is earthed and the inner cylinder is given a charge of 3.5 µC. Determine the capacitance of the system and the potential of the inner cylinder. Neglect end effects (i.e., bending of field lines at the ends).

The ground state energy of hydrogen atom is −13.6 eV. What are the kinetic and potential energies of the electron in this state?

A p-n photodiode is fabricated from a semiconductor with band gap of 2.8 eV. Can it detect a wavelength of 6000 nm?

A system has two charges q_A = 2.5 × 10⁻⁷ C and q_B = −2.5 × 10⁻⁷ C located at points A: (0, 0, − 15 cm) and B: (0, 0, + 15 cm), respectively. What are the total charge and electric dipole moment of the system?

The earth's surface has a negative surface charge density of 10^-9 C m^-2. The potential difference of 400 kV between the top of the atmosphere and the surface results (due to the low conductivity of the lower atmosphere) in a current of only 1800 A over the entire globe. If there were no mechanism of sustaining atmospheric electric field, how much time (roughly) would be required to neutralise the earth's surface? (This never happens in practice because there is a mechanism to replenish electric charges, namely the continual thunderstorms and lightning in different parts of the globe). (Radius of earth = 6.37 x 10⁶ m.)

In a hydrogen atom, the electron and proton are bound at a distance of about 0.53 Å:

(a) Estimate the potential energy of the system in eV, taking the zero of the potential energy at infinite separation of the electron from proton.

(b) What is the minimum work required to free the electron, given that its kinetic energy in the orbit is half the magnitude of potential energy obtained in (a)?

(c) What are the answers to (a) and (b) above if the zero of potential energy is taken at 1.06 Å separation?

A negligibly small current is passed through a wire of length 15 m and uniform cross-section 6.0 x 10^-7 m², and its resistance is measured to be 5.0 Ω. What is the resistivity of the material at the temperature of the experiment?

 (a) Three resistors 2 Ω, 4 Ω and 5 Ω are combined in parallel. What is the total resistance of the combination?

(b) If the combination is connected to a battery of emf 20 V and negligible internal resistance, determine the current through each resistor, and the total current drawn from the battery.

A square coil of side 10 cm consists of 20 turns and carries a current of 12 A. The coil is suspended vertically and the normal to the plane of the coil makes an angle of 30º with the direction of a uniform horizontal magnetic field of magnitude 0.80 T. What is the magnitude of torque experienced by the coil?

A uniformly charged conducting sphere of 2.4 m diameter has a surface charge density of 80.0 μC/m².

(a) Find the charge on the sphere.

(b) What is the total electric flux leaving the surface of the sphere?