Let us list some of the factors, which could possibly influence the speed of wave propagation:
(i) Nature of the source.
(ii) Direction of propagation.
(iii) Motion of the source and/or observer.
(iv) Wave length.
(v) Intensity of the wave.
On which of these factors, if any, does
(a) The speed of light in vacuum,
(b) The speed of light in a medium (say, glass or water), depend?
(a) Speed of light in vacuum is an absolute constant, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. It does not depend upon any of the factors listed above or any other factor.
(b) The speed of light in a medium like water or glass
(i) does not depend upon the nature of the source.
(ii) does not depend upon the direction of propagation, when the medium is isotropic.
(iii) does not depend upon motion of the source w.r.t the medium, but depends on motion of the observer relative to the medium.
(iv) depends on wavelength of light, being lesser for shorter wavelength and vice-versa.
(v) does not depend upon intensity of light.
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 0.1o. 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?
In a Young’s double-slit experiment, the slits are separated by 0.28 mm and the screen is placed 1.4 m away. The distance between the central bright fringe and the fourth bright fringe is measured to be 1.2 cm. Determine the wavelength of light used in the experiment.
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.)
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.
In half-wave rectification, what is the output frequency if the input frequency is 50 Hz. What is the output frequency of a full-wave rectifier for the same input frequency.
An electric dipole with dipole moment 4 × 10−9 C m is aligned at 30° with the direction of a uniform electric field of magnitude 5 × 104N C−1. Calculate the magnitude of the torque acting on the dipole.
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).
A closely wound solenoid of 800 turns and area of cross section 2.5 × 10−4 m2 carries a current of 3.0 A. Explain the sense in which the solenoid acts like a bar magnet. What is its associated magnetic moment?
Answer the following questions:
(a) The earths magnetic field varies from point to point in space. Does it also change with time? If so, on what time scale does it change appreciably?
(b) The earths core is known to contain iron. Yet geologists do not regard this as a source of the earths magnetism. Why?
(c) The charged currents in the outer conducting regions of the earths core are thought to be responsible for earths magnetism. What might be the battery (i.e., the source of energy) to sustain these currents?
(d) The earth may have even reversed the direction of its field several times during its history of 4 to 5 billion years. How can geologists know about the earths field in such distant past?
(e) The earths field departs from its dipole shape substantially at large distances (greater than about 30,000 km). What agencies may be responsible for this distortion?
(f ) Interstellar space has an extremely weak magnetic field of the order of 10−12 T. Can such a weak field be of any significant consequence? Explain.
[Note: Exercise 5.2 is meant mainly to arouse your curiosity. Answers to some questions above are tentative or unknown. Brief answers wherever possible are given at the end. For details, you should consult a good text on geomagnetism.]
A long straight horizontal cable carries a current of 2.5 A in the direction 10º south of west to 10°north of east. The magnetic meridian of the place happens to be 10º west of the geographic meridian. The earth's magnetic field at the location is 0.33 G, and the angle of dip is zero. Locate the line of neutral points (ignore the thickness of the cable). (At neutral points, magnetic field due to a current-carrying cable is equal and opposite to the horizontal component of earth's magnetic field.)
Three capacitors of capacitances 2 pF, 3 pF and 4 pF are connected in parallel.
(a) What is the total capacitance of the combination?
(b) Determine the charge on each capacitor if the combination is connected to a 100 V supply.
Two point charges qA = 3 μC and qB = −3 μC are located 20 cm apart in vacuum.
(a) What is the electric field at the midpoint O of the line AB joining the two charges?
(b) If a negative test charge of magnitude 1.5 × 10−9 C is placed at this point, what is the force experienced by the test charge?