PHYS 111 - Final Exam

December 6, 2010

Instructions
This takehome exam must be taken within the time interval between 8:00am, Wednesday, December
8, 2010, and 5:00pm, Wednesday, December 15, 2010. You may pick it up from and return it to
the department office within twenty-four hours between now and then. Friday pickups are due back
Monday morning before 10:00am. PLEASE HAND BACK THE EXAM PAPER ITSELF, TOO!
You have 3.5 hours to take this exam. You are also encouraged to read through the entire exam for
up to 10 minutes prior to beginning the 3.5 hour exam period.
You may take breaks (i.e. bathroom, food) totalling up to half an hour during the exam, not counted
against the 3.5 hour time limit. During those breaks, your books and notebooks must be closed, and
you must not work on the test!
This exam is open-book (S&J), open your class notes, and you may use your graded problem sets
and their official solutions. DO NOT share notebooks, and DO NOT comb other resources, including
online ones, for answers.
BE NEAT. Do not try to conserve paper by cramming everything onto one sheet.
Show work and explain your reasoning! Do not just give a series of equations, and dont just give an
answer out of thin air. You may use a calculator for arithmetic, but not for symbolic math, and make
sure that you do not plug in numbers too early in the problems!
The problems on this exam have multiple parts. Make sure you answer all parts of all questions. If
there is something you cannot do in an earlier part, and a later part depends on that result, try to make
clear how you would proceed. For example, call the result X and express your answers to later parts
in terms of X.
Watch your pacing, and use your time wisely. I would spend no more than about 20-30 minutes on
the short-answer questions, and no more than 50 minutes on any of the other problems.
Please keep this all in perspective. Its just one test. Try to relax and give it your best effort.
All work on this exam must be your own, and you must remember to sign the honor pledge. Dont
make me hunt for you to sign it. I reserve the right to not accept unsigned work. Signing the pledge
also implies, naturally, that you have obeyed the time restrictions described above. As you all undoubtedly know, the text of the Honor Pledge is: On my honor, I have neither given nor received aid
on this examination.

2
2.1

The exam itself

Short-answer questions

1. (4 points) Car A of mass m is accelerated in a straight line on a flat road at a constant rate from zero up to
a final speed v0 in a time tA . Car B has the same mass, and is accelerated at a constant rate up to the same
final speed, but in time tB = tA /2. Neglect friction. Was the work done on car B smaller, larger, or the
same as the work done on car A? Was the average power expended by car B smaller, larger, or the same as
the average power expended by car A? Explain.
2. (4 points) An ordinary tuning fork, shown in the figure, produces sound because the arms vibrate back
and forth from each other at a resonant frequency, launching sound waves into the surrounding air. Suppose
one could use some other method (e.g., an optical technique) to measure the motion of the tuning fork arms.
Would the frequency of the tuning forks motion be higher, lower, or unchanged if the tuning fork were in
vacuum (as opposed to air)? Why?

3. (4 points) A mass slides frictionlessly in two dimensions on a table, and is attached via a spring to a fixed
post. The mass traces out some kind of orbit around the fixed post, with the spring providing the attractive
force. As the mass moves, does a line between the post and the mass sweep out equal areas in equal times?
If so, why, and if not, why not?
4. (4 points) From our very nonrelativistic perspective, it takes about eight minutes for light to travel from
the sun to the earth (assume c = 3.00108 m/s). Suppose there is an alien (lets call him Bob) on a spacecraft
moving parallel to the line from the sun to the earth at some high speed v = 0.9 c. How long does Bob think
it takes light to get from the sun to the earth? How far (in meters) does Bob think the sun is from the earth?
5. (4 points) In an unprimed reference frame, event A takes place at the origin and time t = 0, and event B
takes place at the origin and time t = +1 s. Does event A precede event B in all inertial reference frames?
Explain.

2.2

Problems

I. At the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA, they have set up a gadget that they call the You-yo,
consisting of a spool-like flywheel as shown, held at a fixed height. The central cylinder has radius R/2,
and the outer disks have radius R. The central cylinder and each outer disk each have mass M . Attached to
the central cylinder is a rope of negligible mass and negligible diameter, with total length L.
About to be lifted.
R
R/2
axis

Before pulling

(a) (4 points) What is the moment of inertia, I, of the whole flywheel about the axis shown that passes
through its center, in terms of M and R?
(b) (6 points) The flywheel begins at t = 0 with no angular velocity, with the rope dangling down far
enough that you can grasp the (massless) handle on the end. You are able to use your arm muscles to pull
downward on the rope with a constant force f acting over a total distance d < L. What is the angular speed,
0 , of the flywheel when you are done pulling with your arm muscles, in terms of f , d, M , and R? Sketch
the angular speed, , of the flywheel as a function of time (properly label your axes!) through this process
and a little bit beyond. How long does it take to get up to the full angular speed, in terms of M , d, and f ?
(c) (5 points) After you stop using your muscles to pull, the flywheel continues rotating at constant
angular velocity 0 until all of the rope is unwound; then it begins winding the rope back up in the opposite
direction. During this time, you scoot over to directly underneath the rewinding rope. Once the winding has
taken up all of the slack, so that the handle at the end of the rope is now as high as your arms reach, the
tension in the rope increases, and you are lifted off the ground (!). You have mass m. You do not instantly
acquire vertical velocity as the rope snaps taut (since that would imply an infinite acceleration!). Rather,
total angular momentum of (you + the flywheel) about the axis of the flywheel is conserved. Approximating
you as a point mass hanging vertically from the rope, what is your speed immediately after you are lifted off
the ground? (Hint: Your answer should be in terms of M , m, f , and d, if you plug in for I)
(d) (5 points) To what height are you (that is, your center of mass) lifted, when the flywheel comes to a
stop? (Hint: Your answer should be in terms of f , d, m, M , and g if you plug in for I.)

II. A disk of mass M and radius R attached to one end of a rod of mass M and length L as shown, and a
disk of mass 2M is attached to the other end, with the rod free to pivot on a tabletop in the x-y plane about
its center. Springs (massless) are attached as shown, linking the disks to walls fixed to the tabletop. The
springs have unequal spring constants, k1 and k2 , and have unstretched lengths so that, in the position as
drawn, neither spring is exerting a force on the disk/rod system.

k2

y
R

2M

k1
y

(a) (4 points) What is the total moment of inertia of this system (Itot ) about the axis through the pivot
point and normal to the plane of motion?
(b) (6 points) If the disk/rod assembly is rotated away from the x-axis by an angle , the springs are
stretched/compressed. Using the relationship between torque and angular acceleration, derive an equation
of motion (a second order differential equation) for the angle of the disk/rod system if perturbed away
from = 0, assuming that is small. What is the angular frequency for small oscillations (in the absence
of damping)? Write the answer in terms of k1 , k2 , R, L, and Itot .

(c) (5 points) Suppose that there is some damping due to the pivot, proportional to the angular speed ,

so that the torque about the pivot due to the damping is b. What value would b have to have for the system
to be critically damped? (Hint: compare your diff-eq to the one we were considering when we discussed
damping in class.) Write the answer in terms of k1 , k2 , R, L, and Itot .
(d) (5 points) Finally, suppose the whole system (springs, table, and all) is accelerated in the +y direction
at a constant acceleration y. After any transients die away, what is the angle 0 that the disk/rod system
finally settles on relative to the x-axis, as the acceleration holds steady? Hint: in the frame co-accelerating
with the table, there are fictitious forces that cause torques, which must be balanced by the torques from the
springs. You may assume that 0 is small. Write your answer in terms of k1 , k2 , M , y, R, and L.

III. A spacecraft of mass m is approaching the planet Mars (mass M ) in a parabolic path that will, if
unaltered in any way, have the spacecraft pass by the planet with a closest approach distance Ra . (Ignore
any other bodies in the solar system in this problem, and you may safely assume that M >> m.)

Ra

2Ra

Ra

2Ra

(a) (6 points) What is the total energy of the spacecraft, assuming that the zero of gravitational potential
energy is chosen to be zero at infinite spacecraft-planet separation? What is the angular momentum of the
spacecraft relative to an axis through the center of the planet and normal to the plane of motion of the
spacecraft?
(b) (7 points) Suppose that the distance Ra is chosen so that the spacecraft briefly grazes the top of Mars
atmosphere (!). How much energy would the spacecraft need to lose via atmospheric friction (assumed to
act instantaneously at the point of closest approach) to end up, after the graze, in an elliptical orbit with periareion (closest approach between the spacecraft and the center of Mars) Ra and ap-areion (farthest distance
between the spacecraft and the center of Mars in the elliptical orbit ) 2Ra ?
(c) (7 points) Suppose the spacecraft needs to end up, finally, in a circular orbit of radius 2Ra . How
much velocity change must be made, and how much energy does it take, for the spacecraft to transition into
such a circular orbit at ap-areion? The spacecraft must do this part by actually firing a rocket engine.
The procedure in (b) is called aerobraking, and has actually been used to put spacecraft into orbit
around other planets while not having to carry the fuel needed for two orbital changes.

IV. We are going to look at electron/positron pair production. Consider the situation shown in the figure. A
photon of energy h is moving in the +x direction and an electron of rest mass me is moving in the x
direction, toward each other, along the x-axis such that the total momentum in this frame of reference is
zero. This is often called the center of momentum frame (rather than center of mass, since the photon
is massless).
center of momentum frame
before collision

electrons frame
h
me

me
after collision

ee+
e-

ee+
e-

vf

(a) (5 points) What is v/c for the electron in this frame, in terms of h, me , and c?
(b) (5 points) Suppose that the electron and photon collide, leaving the electron at rest, and producing
an additional electron and positron (which has the same rest mass as an electron), also at rest in this frame.
What initial photon energy was necessary for this to take place, in terms of me and c?
(c) (5 points) Before the collision, in the frame of the original electron, what is the energy of the photon?
(d) (5 points) In that same frame (that of the original electron), what is the final velocity, vf , of the two
electrons and the positron (all the same) after the collision?

Congratulations - youre done!