Introduction to Physics

1. How many nanoseconds does it take light to travel 1.00 ft in vacuum? (This result is a useful quantity
to remember.)

2. The density of gold is 19.3 g/cm ^3What is this value in kilograms per cubic meter?

3. Figure 1.7 shows the result of unacceptable error in the stopping position of a train. (a) If a train
travels 890 km from Berlin to Paris and then overshoots the end of the track by 10 m, what is the
percent error in the total distance covered? (b) Is it correct to write the total distance covered by the
train as 890,010 m? Explain.

4. How many kernels of corn does it take to fill a 2-L soft drink bottle?

5. Two ropes in a vertical plane exert equal-magnitude forces on a hanging weight but pull with an angle
of 86.0° between them. What pull does each one exert if their resultant pull is 372 N directly upward?

6. A disoriented physics professor drives 3.25 km north, then 2.90 km west, and then 1.50 km south.
Find the magnitude and direction of the resultant displacement, using the method of components. In a
vector-addition diagram (roughly to scale), show that the resultant displacement found from your
diagram is in qualitative agreement with the result you obtained using the method of components.

7. How many dollar bills would you have to stack to reach the moon? Would that be cheaper than
building and launching a spacecraft? (Hint: Start by folding a dollar bill to see how many thicknesses
make 1.0mm.)

8. A rocket fires two engines simultaneously. One produces a thrust of 480 N directly forward, while the
other gives a 513-N thrust at 32.4° above the forward direction. Find the magnitude and direction
(relative to the forward direction) of the resultant force that these engines exert on the rocket.

9. A fence post is 52.0 m from where you are standing, in a direction 37.0° north of east. A second fence
post is due south from you. What is the distance of the second post from you, if the distance between
the two posts is 80.0 m?

10. John, Paul, and George are standing in a strawberry field. Paul is 14.0 m due west of John. George is
36.0 m from Paul, in a direction 37.0° south of east from Paul’s location. How far is George from John?
What is the direction of George’s location from that of John?
Linear Motion

1. Starting from the front door of your ranch house, you walk 60.0 m due east to your windmill, and then
you turn around and slowly walk 40.0 m west to a bench where you sit and watch the sunrise. It takes
you 28.0 s to walk from your house to the wind-mill and then 36.0 s to walk from the windmill to the
bench. For the entire trip from your front door to the bench, what are (a) your average velocity and (b)
your average speed?

2. An antelope moving with constant acceleration covers the distance between two points 70.0 m apart
in 7.00 s. Its speed as it passes the second point is 15.0 m/s. (a) What is its speed at the first point? (b)
What is its acceleration?

3. A Fast Pitch. The fastest measured pitched baseball left the pitcher’s hand at a speed of 45.0 m/s. If
the pitcher was in contact with the ball over a distance of 1.50 m and produced constant acceleration,
(a) what acceleration did he give the ball, and (b) how much time did it take him to pitch it?

4. (a) If a flea can jump straight up to a height of 0.440 m, what is its initial speed as it leaves the
ground? (b) How long is it in the air?

5. A 15-kg rock is dropped from rest on the earth and reaches the ground in 1.75 s. When it is dropped
from the same height on Saturn’s satellite Enceladus, it reaches the ground in 18.6 s. What is the
acceleration due to gravity on Enceladus?

6. A rocket carrying a satellite is accelerating straight up from the earth’s surface. At 1.15 s after liftoff,
the rocket clears the top of its launch platform, 63 m above the ground. After an additional 4.75 s, it is
1.00 km above the ground. Calculate the magnitude of the average velocity of the rocket for (a) the
4.75-s part of its flight and (b) the first 5.90 s of its flight.

7. A ball starts from rest and rolls down a hill with uniform acceleration, traveling 150 m during the
second 5.0 s of its motion. How far did it roll during the first 5.0 s of motion?

8. A marble is released from one rim of a hemispherical bowl of diameter 50.0 cm and rolls down and up
to the opposite rim in 10.0 s. Find (a) the average speed and (b) the average velocity of the marble.

9. A flowerpot falls off a windowsill and falls past the window below. You may ignore air resistance. It
takes the pot 0.420 s to pass from the top to the bottom of this window, which is 1.90 m high. How far is
the top of the window below the windowsill from which the flowerpot fell?

-10. An alert hiker sees a boulder fall from the top of a distant cliff and notes that it takes 1.30 s for the
boulder to fall the last third of the way to the ground. You may ignore air resistance. (a) What is the
height of the cliff in meters?
Motion in two or three dimension

1. Two crickets, Chirpy and Milada, jump from the top of a vertical cliff. Chirpy just drops and reaches
the ground in 3.50 s, while Milada jumps horizontally with an initial speed of 9.50 cm/s. How far from
the base of the cliff will Milada hit the ground?

2. Suppose the departure angle in Fig. 3.26 is 42.0° and the distance d is 3.00 m. Where will the dart and
monkey meet if the initial speed of the dart is (a) 12.0 m/s? (b) 8.00 m/s? (c) What will happen if the
initial speed of the dart is 4.0 m/s?

3. A model of a helicopter rotor has four blades, each 3.40 m long from the central shaft to the blade tip.
The model is rotated in a wind tunnel at 550 rev/min. (a) What is the linear speed of the blade tip, in
m/s?

4. A canoe has a velocity of 4.0 m/s southeast relative to the earth. The canoe is on a river that is flowing
0.50 m/s east relative to the earth. Find the velocity (magnitude and direction) of the canoe relative to
the river.

5. Crossing the River I. A river flows due south with a speed of 2.0 m/s. A man steers a motorboat across
the river; his velocity relative to the water is 4.2 m/s due east. The river is 800 m wide. (a) What is his
velocity (magnitude and direction) relative to the earth?

6. A “moving sidewalk” in an airport terminal building moves at 1.0 m/s and is 35.0 m long. If a woman
steps on at one end and walks at 1.5 m/s relative to the moving sidewalk, how much time does she
require to reach the opposite end if she walks (a) in the same direction the sidewalk is moving? (b) In the
opposite direction?

7. Dynamite! A demolition crew uses dynamite to blow an old building apart. Debris from the explosion
flies off in all directions and is later found at distances as far as 50 m from the explosion. Estimate the
maximum speed at which debris was blown outward by the explosion. Describe any assumptions that
you make.

8. A jungle veterinarian with a blow-gun loaded with a tranquilizer dart and a sly 1.5-kg monkey are each
25 m above the ground in trees 70 m apart. Just as the hunter shoots horizontally at the monkey, the
monkey drops from the tree in a vain attempt to escape being hit. What must the minimum muzzle
velocity of the dart have been for the hunter to have hit the monkey before it reached the ground?

9. An airplane is flying with a velocity of 90.0 m/s at an angle of 23.0° above the horizontal. When the
plane is 114 m directly above a dog that is standing on level ground, a suitcase drops out of the luggage
compartment. How far from the dog will the suitcase land? You can ignore air resistance.

10. A jungle veterinarian with a blow-gun loaded with a tranquilizer dart and a sly 1.5-kg monkey are
each 25 m above the ground in trees 70 m apart. Just as the hunter shoots horizontally at the monkey,
the monkey drops from the tree in a vain attempt to escape being hit. What must the minimum muzzle
velocity of the dart have been for the hunter to have hit the monkey before it reached the ground?
Newtons law of motion, Forces

- Why is the earth only approximately an inertial reference frame?

-Does Newton’s second law hold true for an observer in a van as it speeds up, slows down, or rounds a
corner? Explain.

-The acceleration of a falling body is measured in an elevator traveling upward at a constant speed of
What result is obtained?

1. Two forces have the same magnitude F. What is the angle between the two vectors if their sum has a
magnitude of (a) 2F? (b) √2F? (c) zero? Sketch the three vectors in each case.

2. Two dogs pull horizontally on ropes attached to a post; the angle between the ropes is 60.0°. If dog A
exerts a force of 270 N and dog B exerts a force of 300 N, find the magnitude of the resultant force and
the angle it makes with dog A’s rope.

3. A 68.5-kg skater moving initially at 2.40 m/s on rough horizontal ice comes to rest uniformly in 3.52 s
due to friction from the ice. What force does friction exert on the skater?

4. A box rests on a frozen pond, which serves as a frictionless horizontal surface. If a fisherman applies a
horizontal force with magnitude 48.0 N to the box and produces an acceleration of magnitude 3.00
m/s^2, what is the mass of the box?

5. An astronaut’s pack weighs 17.5 N when she is on earth but only 3.24 N when she is at the surface of
an asteroid. (a) What is the acceleration due to gravity on this asteroid?

6. The fastest served tennis ball, served by “Big Bill” Tilden in 1931, was measured at 73.14m/s. The
mass of a tennis ball is 57 g, and the ball is typically in contact with the tennis racquet for 30.0 ms, with
the ball starting from rest. Assuming constant acceleration, what force did Big Bill’s tennis racquet exert
on the tennis ball if he hit it essentially horizontally?

7. The upward normal force exerted by the floor is 620 N on an elevator passenger who weighs 650 N.
What are the reaction forces to these two forces? Is the passenger accelerating? If so, what are the
magnitude and direction of the acceleration?

8. A 4.80-kg bucket of water is accelerated upward by a cord of negligible mass whose breaking strength
is 75.0 N. If the bucket starts from rest, what is the minimum time required to raise the bucket a vertical
distance of 12.0 m without breaking the cord?

9. An advertisement claims that a particular automobile can “stop on a dime.” What net force would
actually be necessary to stop a 850-kg automobile traveling initially at a 45.0 km/h in a distance equal to
the diameter of a dime, which is 1.8 cm?

10. You have just landed on Planet X. You take out a 100-g ball, release it from rest from a height of 10.0
m, and measure that it takes 2.2 s to reach the ground. You can ignore any force on the ball from the
atmosphere of the planet. How much does the 100-g ball weigh on the surface of Planet X?

Application of Newton's Law of motion

-A clothesline hangs between two poles. No matter how tightly the line is stretched, it always sags a little
at the center. Explain why.

-Two 25.0-N weights are suspended at opposite ends of a rope that passes over a light, frictionless
pulley. The pulley is attached to a chain that goes to the ceiling. (a) What is the tension in the rope? (b)
What is the tension in the chain?

-A 75.0-kg wrecking ball hangs from a uniform heavy-duty chain having a mass of 26.0 kg. (a) Find the
maximum and minimum tension in the chain. (b) What is the tension at a point three-fourths of the way
up from the bottom of the chain?

-A picture frame hung against a wall is suspended by two wires attached to its upper corners. If the two
wires make the same angle with the vertical, what must this angle be if the tension in each wire is equal
to 0.75 of the weight of the frame? (Ignore any friction between the wall and the picture frame.)

-The Trendelenburg Position. In emergencies with major blood loss, the doctor will order the patient
placed in the Trendelenburg position, in which the foot of the bed is raised to get maximum blood flow
to the brain. If the coefficient of static friction between the typical patient and the bedsheets is 1.20,
what is the maximum angle at which the bed can be tilted with respect to the floor before the patient
begins to slide?

-A stockroom worker pushes a box with mass 11.2 kg on a horizontal surface with a constant speed of
3.50 m/s. The coefficient of kinetic friction between the box and the surface is 0.20. (a) What horizontal
force must the worker apply to maintain the motion? (b) If the force calculated in part (a) is removed,
how far does the box slide before coming to rest?

-You tie a cord to a pail of water, and you swing the pail in a vertical circle of radius 0.600 m. What
minimum speed must you give the pail at the highest point of the circle if no water is to spill from it?

-A hammer is hanging by a light rope from the ceiling of a bus. The ceiling of the bus is parallel to the
roadway. The bus is traveling in a straight line on a horizontal street. You observe that the hammer
hangs at rest with respect to the bus when the angle between the rope and the ceiling of the bus is 67°.
What is the acceleration of the bus?

-Two objects with masses 5.00 kg and 2.00 kg hang 0.600 m above the floor from the ends of a cord 6.00
m long passing over a frictionless pulley. Both objects start from rest. Find the maximum height reached
by the 2.00-kg object.

-You are riding in a school bus. As the bus rounds a flat curve at constant speed, a lunch box with mass
0.500 kg, suspended from the ceiling of the bus by a string 1.80 m long, is found to hang at rest relative
to the bus when the string makes an angle of 30.0° with the vertical. In this position the lunch box is 50.0
m from the center of curvature of the curve. What is the speed of v of the bus?

Work, Power, and Energy

-A rope tied to a body is pulled, causing the body to accelerate. But according to Newton’s third law, the
body pulls back on the rope with an equal and opposite force. Is the total work done then zero? If so,
how can the body’s kinetic energy change? Explain.

-You push your physics book 1.50 m along a horizontal tabletop with a horizontal push of 2.40 N while
the opposing force of friction is 0.600 N. How much work does each of the following forces do on the
book: (a) your 2.40-N push, (b) the friction force, (c) the normal force from the tabletop, and (d) gravity?
(e) What is the net work done on the book?

- A tow truck pulls a car 5.00 km along a horizontal roadway using a cable having a tension of 850 N. (a)
How much work does the cable do on the car if it pulls horizontally? If it pulls at 35.0° above the
horizontal? (b) How much work does the cable do on the tow truck in both cases of part (a)? (c) How
much work does gravity do on the car in part (a)?

-A 75.0-kg painter climbs a ladder that is 2.75 m long leaning against a vertical wall. The ladder makes a
30.0° angle with the wall. (a) How much work does gravity do on the painter? (b) Does the answer to
part (a) depend on whether the painter climbs at constant speed or accelerates up the ladder?

-A 0.800-kg ball is tied to the end of a string 1.60 m long and swung in a vertical circle. (a) During one
complete circle, starting anywhere, calculate the total work done on the ball by (i) the tension in the
string and (ii) gravity. (b) Repeat part (a) for motion along the semicircle from the lowest to the highest
point on the path.

-Adult cheetahs, the fastest of the great cats, have a mass of about 70 kg and have been clocked running
at up to 72 mph (32 m/s). (a) How many joules of kinetic energy does such a swift cheetah have? (b) By
what factor would its kinetic energy change if its speed were doubled?

-You throw a 20-N rock vertically into the air from ground level. You observe that when it is 15.0 m
above the ground, it is traveling at 25.0 m/s upward. Use the work–energy theorem to find (a) the rock’s
speed just as it left the ground and (b) its maximum height.

-A sled with mass 8.00 kg moves in a straight line on a frictionless horizontal surface. At one point in its
path, its speed is 4.00 m/s; after it has traveled 2.50 m beyond this point, its speed is 6.00 m/s. Use the
work–energy theorem to find the force acting on the sled, assuming that this force is constant and that
it acts in the direction of the sled’s motion.

- A soccer ball with mass 0.420 kg is initially moving with speed 2.00 m/s. A soccer player kicks the ball,
exerting a constant force of magnitude 40.0 N in the same direction as the ball’s motion. Over what
distance must the player’s foot be in contact with the ball to increase the ball’s speed to 6.00 m/s.

-A block of ice with mass 2.00 kg slides 0.750 m down an inclined plane that slopes downward at an
angle of 36.9° below the horizontal. If the block of ice starts from rest, what is its final

speed? You can ignore friction.