College Physics : College Physics

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for College Physics

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Example Questions

Example Question #1 : Quantum And Nuclear Physics

A car with mass  is heading toward a wall at a speed . What is the approximate de Broglie wavelength of the car?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The de Broglie wavelength is given by .

Example Question #2 : Quantum And Nuclear Physics

Radiocarbon dating is a method that allows scientists to estimate the age of organisms after they have died. A fairly constant amount of radioactive remains in the animal while alive, but once it dies the degrades over time into . By measuring the relative amount of these two in a dead organism compared to a living one,  along with knowing that the half-life of is years, it can be determined how long ago the organism died.

If a scientist finds that a fossil contains amount of the normally found in the atmosphere at that time, approximately how old is this fossil?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

In this question, we're given a brief description of radiocarbon dating. We're given the amount of that has been found in a fossil sample and we're asked to find the approximate age of the fossil.

First, let's briefly go over radiocarbon dating. This method essentially assumes that the amount of radioactive carbon within an organism remains fairly stable at any given time while the organism is alive. Moreover, this amount of radioactive carbon is related to the amount of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere. Once the organism dies, however, it ceases to gain any radioactive carbon; rather, the that was present now begins to decay into . Thus, by measuring the amount of in the organism and comparing it to the amount in the atmosphere, the age at which the organism died can be approximated.

Since we're dealing with the decay of , this is a radioactive decay problem. Recall that all radioactive decay reactions follow first-order rate kinetics. What this means is that the rate of decay is only dependent on the amount of radioactive material at any given instant. Hence, we can use the first-order rate equation.

We can further rearrange this expression to isolate the variable for time.

In arriving at this expression, we see that we need to know the rate constant, , in order to solve for . To do this, we can use the equation that relates the half-life to the rate constant for a first-order process.

Rearranging, we can find the rate-constant.

Now that we have the rate constant, we can plug this value into the previous expression to solve for .

 

Example Question #2 : Radioactive Decay

Suppose that  of a radioactive drug is injected into a patient. After  minutes pass by, another  is injected. After another  minutes pass by, how much of the drug is expected to be in the patient's body?

Note: The half-life of the drug is  minutes.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

For this problem, the first step is to find the rate constant for the decay reaction. Since we're given the half-life, we can calculate this value using the following equation.

Now, we can use the first order rate equation to find out how much drug will be left after the first time interval of  minutes.

So, after the first  minutes, there will be  of the drug in the patient's body. But from the question stem we're told that an additional  of the drug is injected. Hence, there is now  of the drug present.

With this new amount in mind, we'll need to calculate how much of the drug will be present after more time has elapsed. We can do this by using the same equation as before.

This is the final amount of drug that is expected to be present in the patient's body at that instant of time.

Example Question #3 : Radioactive Decay

Iodine-131 has a half life of 8.02 days and undergoes beta decay.

If a  sample of iodine-131 is left out for 1 week (7 days), how much of the sample will still be iodine-131? What will Iodine - 131 decay into?

Possible Answers:

 of iodine-131 will be left and it will decay into xenon-131

 of iodine-131 will be left and it will decay into antimony-127

 of iodine-131 will be left and will decay into antimony-127

 of iodine-131 will be left and it will decay into xenon-131

 of iodine-131 and decays into tellurium-131

Correct answer:

 of iodine-131 will be left and it will decay into xenon-131

Explanation:

Finding the amount is a simple half life problem. Start with setting up what you know for any half-life problem.

,  is the rate of decay, 200 is the initial amount, and 100 is the half left after 8.02 days.

From there simplify. 

. To solve this take the natural log of both sides so that 

Now plug this into the equation and find what happens after 7 days.

Beta decay is when a neutron releases an electron and becomes a proton. Therefore, the atomic number goes up by one but the atomic mass remains the same. This results in xenon-131.

Example Question #1 : Mechanics

A car traveling at  has a kinetic energy . If the car accelerates to , what will the new kinetic energy be?

Possible Answers:

The mass of the car is required

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Kinetic energy is given by. We will begin by calculating the car's initial kinetic energy, in terms of the unknown mass of the car : 

.

Next, we will calculate the final energy of the car, also in terms of the unknown mass of the car:

.

To find the ratio of the final to initial kinetic energy, we divide  by . We see that this reduces to  with the both the mass  and  terms cancelling. . Thus, the new kinetic energy is .

Example Question #1 : Mechanics

A  steel ball is in a spring loaded launcher. The spring has a constant of . If the ball is pulled back 50 cm then released and the ball leaves the launcher at a speed of , how much work was done by friction?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

So in order to solve this problem, we first should think about where all the energy in the system is coming from and going. Specifically when you pull the spring back, the work you do is turned into potential energy stored in the spring. So:

and the energy transforms into kinetic when you let go, but some of that energy is lost to friction so

    and 

So use the equation below, enter in your known quantities and then solve for the work done by friction.

Plug in known values and solve.

Example Question #1 : Mechanics

A toy car is set up on a frictionless track containing a downward sloping ramp and a vertically oriented loop. Assume the ramp is  tall. The car starts at the top of the ramp at rest.

What additional piece of information is necessary to calculate the maximum height of the loop if the car is to complete the loop and continue out the other side?

Possible Answers:

The value of 

The mass of the car

None

The exact shape of the loop

The distance between the end of the ramp and entrance to the loop

Correct answer:

None

Explanation:

This is an example of conservation of energy. The car starts at the top of the ramp, at height . It has no velocity at this time since it is starting from a rest. Therefore its total energy is  where  is the mass of the car and  is the value of gravitational acceleration.

At the bottom of the loop, all of the potential energy will have been converted into kinetic energy.

As the car traverses the loop and rises above the ground, kinetic energy will be converted back into potential energy. The shape of the loop does not matter in this case -- only the vertical distance between the ground and the car.

In the tallest possible loop, all kinetic energy at the bottom is converted to potential energy at the top. This is the maximum height the car can reach -- there is no additional energy left to continue climbing a taller loop. Therefore, the potential energy at the top of the tallest loop we can build is equal to the kinetic energy at the bottom of the loop. But we have already noted that the kinetic energy at the bottom of the loop is equal to the potential energy at the top of the ramp.

Therefore, we set We see that  and  cancel, and we are left with  . In other words, the tallest loop you can build is equal to the height of whatever ramp you select. In this example, the tallest loop we can build is . We do not need to know the specific values of  or .

Example Question #2 : Mechanics

An elevator is designed to hold  of cargo. The designers want the elevator to be able to go from the ground floor to the top of a  tall building in . What is the minimum amount of power that must be delivered to the motor at the top of the shaft? Assume no friction and that the elevator itself has a negligible weight.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Power is the rate of energy transfer. To raise a  object , a total of  or ( is required. To find the power in Watts (), we divide the total energy required by the time over which the energy must be transferred:

Example Question #2 : Work And Energy

How far can a person jump while running at   and a vertical velocity of   ?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

We know that:

and we are looking for the maximum height (vertical displacement) this person can obtain, so we aren't concerned with .

We can apply the conservation of energy:

Masses cancel, so 

Solve for :

  (rounded to simplify our calculations)

so let's plug in what we know

. This is our final answer.

Example Question #1 : Conservation Of Momentum And Energy

If a   object has a kinetic energy of  right after it is launched in the air, and it has  KE at its max height, what is its max height?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Let's first write down the information we are given:

In order to solve this problem we must apply the conservation of energy, which states  since no friction.

This means that as the project reaches its max height energy is converted from Kinetic Energy (energy of motion) to potential gravitational energy (based off of height).

We can subtract  from  to get the  at its max height

=

so we can solve for the height

where 

therefore 

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