"Solutions to GRE physics sample test GR9277 Odd problems 41-35 1. Hopefully, you will recognize this wavefunction as that for a plane wave, and recall that the corresponding momentum is p= Me, so that the correct solution is C. Another method would be to recall that the momentum operator is given by p,=-inZ (French & Taylor p. 443). Using this on the given wavefunction, v=e(%-"), we get pry =nty. If you didn't recall either of these approaches, then you should realize that only A, C, and D have the correct. units, and A seems pretty unlikely. 3. You might tend to panic at this problem, thinking that you have to have memorized what the K series of x-rays is, but if you read on, you'll find this is not so. At the least, you should be able to guess that the electrons are more tightly bound by the higher Z (Z=atomic number) nucleus, so that the answer would have to be either A or B. Glancing at the answers, we see that only a crude estimate will be required, so the Bohr model will be adequate. The Bohr model only gives. reasonable results for atoms with one electron (i.e. hydrogen, or ionized forms of heavier elements), and so doesn't really apply very well here, but should still serve to give a rough idea. If you're lucky, you'll recall that the energy of photons emitted from "hydrogenic" (one-electron) atoms is proportional to Z2 (French & Taylor, p. 30). If don't recall this, you might guess it from the Following rationale: As the charge on the nucleus is increased, the electron will be pulled further in. Since the potential is proportional to 1/r, the further in the electron gets, the more quickly its ‘energy changes (thus giving one factor of Z). ‘Addtdonally. the porental & propordonel 2 giving the second factor of Z, so itis reasonable to Buess that the spacing between the energy levels 7 a 6y 1 will be proportional to Z2, (8) =} s0 the correct answer is A. 5. Obviously, the answer must be A, B, or C. (The force must approach zero as we approach the Center of the earth, since the gravitational force from a pea is nearly zero, even when you'r right ext to it.) At the least, you should be able to guess that the force will be proportional to R or to R2, so that the correct answer would be B or C. Pethaps you will dimly recall a graph of the gravitational force for such a situation (e.g. Tipler P. 317), which shows that the gravitational force varies linearly with radius inside a uniform sphere. If not, you might be able to reconstruct this dependencé from the following simple argument: The mass further out than Ro = R/2 has no effect, since the gravitational field inside a hollow shell is zero. The mass inside Ro is Proportional to the volume, which is proportional to Ro, however, the force this mass exerts is proportional to 1/Ro2, so the net effect is that the force i proportional to Ro, Thus, the correct answer is C, 7. This is a nasty looking problem -- so nasty in fact that you should look for some trick way to, arrive at the answer -- there clearly wouldn't be time to figure it out by any Toute in the 102 seconds allocated to each question. So — what are the normal modes? The two most obvious ones are 1) where the two masses swing in phase and 2) where they swing out of phase. Neither of these corresponds to the f=0 solution specified, so that must just consist of the whole assembly sliding along the wire, with no swinging involved. At this point, you might recognize that the symmetry of mode 2 implies that the tube doesn't move. That means that the attachment point for each of the two pendulum bobs doesn't move, and they each swing with the ordinary ndulum frequency Vg/i (you should have Pomorad ie frequency) Since this is different from the frequency quoted in the question, it must. be the correct answer, ie. A. 9. From the symmetry of the problem, the only reasonable answer is A. Another approach would be the process of elimination: B,D, and E have unreasonable dependences on r the field would be bigger as r got bigger. So, the only reasonable choices are A and C. 11. If you don't remember the appropriate equations, you should at least remember that the RC decay is exponential, which means that the answer must involve a natural logarithm (ie. D or E), and that energies and powers are proportional to the square of voltages and currents, so theenergy takes less time to decay to half its original value than does the voltage, therefore E is correct. More quantitatively, the voltage across the ‘capacitor in this situation is given by V =Vge-/RC (tiple p. 761) and the energy stored in a capacitor is dev, So the energy stored will be Proportional to e-2URC, When BS? (corresponding to solution E), this factor is 282 oP neha}, 13, Hopefully itis obvious to all that TV would be incorrect if monopoles existed, since they would function in a way similar to electric charge, so that the divergence around a monopole would be non-zero (as itis for electric field around a charge ~ see II). Also, if there were magnetic monopoles, they could flow around like electrons, creating a magnetic current. Therefore, we would need a term in II to mimic the J term in I. So, the correct answer is D. 15. The equipartition theorem (look it up in your stat. mech. book, if you've taken stat mech) says that there is XT of energy per term in the energy which is quadratic (i.e. proportional to the ‘momentum squared or to the position squared). ‘This theorem is only applicable in the high- temperature limit, ie. when kT is much greater than the spacing between energy levels. ‘So, for example, a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator has energy KT, since it has two quadratic terms in the energy: the kinetic energy (proportional to momentum squared) and the potential energy (proportional to position squared). ‘The heat capacity is the derivitive of the energy with respect to temperature, so the heat capacity is 3k per quadratic term. So, calculating the heat capacity of something in the high temperature limit boils down to counting the ‘number of quadratic terms in the energy. In the present case, there are six terms which are quadratic in a momentum-like term: 3 directions of translation, two of rotation (we're told specifically that the dumbbell is not free to rotate around the axis of the spring), and one of the two atoms springing in and out. ‘There is one quadratic term in the position, associated with the springing, for a total of 7 quadratic terms, or a specific heat of #k per molecule, R=k times ‘Avogadro's number, so the correct answer is C. (Note that there is no potential energy associated with translation or rotation.) 17. This is a quite tricky question, as evidenced by the fact that only 10% of the testees got it right. Itis complicated by the statement "The oscilloscope spot is initially at the center of the screen.” Since only C and E pass through the Center of the screen, you might be tempted to ‘choose one of these. However, a more careful reading reveals that the spot is at the center of the screen before the oscillators are connected, so all bets are off. B and D are out, as they obviously correspond to frequency ratios other than 2. E'is quite tempting, but careful thought reveals that it Corresponds to the horizontal channel having twice the frequency of the vertical channel, which is the reverse of our situtation. A is the correct response: Let's say we begin with both the X and the Y at the minimum point in their cycles, ie. the spot is in the lower left. X begins to increase, so the spot travels to the right. Y also starts to increase, so the spot moves up. However, since Y's frequency is twice as high, Y stars to decrease when X is only halfway across. When X has reached its maximum, Y is back to its minimum, i.e. the spot isin the lower right. Now X begins to decrease, and the spot starts to travel back to the left. During this second half of X's cycle, Y retraces the same path it took during the first half. (Note: for a different setting of the phase between X and Y, itis possible to generate a pattern which looks like a sideways version of E.) Using the same type of arguments, we can see that C corresponds to the case where Y has a frequency which is 3 times that of X. 19. This one's just a test of how quickly you can do math, and whether you can guess at the approximate density of the earth. A typical metal, say iron, has a density of about 7 g/em3. There are 106 cm? in a m3, oa m3 of iron would have a mass of about 107 g or 104 kg. (You shouldn't spend time to be more accurate, since the answers differ from one another by factors of 103.) The volume of a sphere is $e, ‘or about 413, 6.43 is about the same as 63, which is 36 x 6, or about 200. So, the volume of the earth is about 4 x 200 x (105)3 which is about 1000 times 1018, or 1021, corresponding to about 1025 kg, so the answer must be A. 21. You have to think fast to get this one in the alotted 102 seconds. Answer I is obviouslyridiculous. 11, I, and IV appear reasonable, but who knows. If the light is not being absorbed, then it must be being cancelled out by some type of destructive interference. My initial thought was that this was similar to an anti-reflection. Coating, in which part of the light penetrates the front surface, passes through the medium of the coating, reflects off the back surface, and comes back to the front 180° out of phase with the light which just reflects off the front surface. However, this only works for light of a single wavelength, and we're told that a white-light source is being However, we see that if Il, Hl, and IV are all correct, we will indeed get destructive interference: Since the film is much thinner than the wavelength of light, there is hardly any phase change as the light passes through it. ‘Thus, the 1809 phase-changed waves reflected off the front surface cancel the un-phase-changed waves reflected off the back surface. This is discussed in more detail in Tipler, p. 1063. 23. If youre lucky, you'll recall that conduction in metals go suprisingly fast abou 1% of the speed of light. If you remember this, it's clear that the correct answer is E. If not, well need to use the equipartition theorem again -- the average kinetic energy of an electron is KT in each of the three cartesian directions. Since we only need a very rough number, set mv? =KT. In this case, the appropriate T is the Fermi temperature given in the problem. (In fact, the Fermi temperature is really defined in terms ofthe average energy of an electron at the Fermi = surface) So,r= |» oe io =108, and the correct answer is E. 2. This is only hard if you panic. Charged particles (electrons, protons, alpha particles (=He nucleus), and positrons) and massive nuclei are certainly not going to penetrate very far. So, the answer must be D. 27. Recalling that for plane waves p= nk, we see that this is just an uncertainty principle question. apar2 so akar2 1 and the comect answer is B. (The equation for y is just a superposition of plane waves, with weighting which depends on k.) 29. The correct solution must look like a sine wave inside the box and decay exponentially outside, Only B satisfies this criterion. (Because Ais centered around zero, the probability y? is increasing as we go further outside the box.) 31. A real nasty one, which I would not expect most of you to get. (Only 16% of testees got it correct.) The capital $ indicates that the total orbital angular momentum of the atom is 0 (French and Taylor p. 440), However, the question is asking about the total electronic angular momentum, J, which is the vector sum of the orbital angular momentum and the spin. Helium has two electrons; their spins could either be in an antisymmetric state (total spin S = 0, z-componeat of spin, corresponding to on¢ spin up and one spin down) or in a symmetric state (total spin S=1, corresponding to one of three possible states: both spins up (z-component of spin=1), both spins down (z-component of spin = +1), or both spins in a superposition of up and down states (2-component of spin = 0)). (See French and Taylor p. 565 for more about these symmetric and antisymmetric states.) The left superscript 3 indicates the multiplicity; since it's three, and not one, we know that it corresponds to the three tric states, therefore S = I, and, since L =0, J is also equal to 1. So, the correct answer is B. 33. Obviously, if you had plenty of time, you could get this one with no problem, but you don't have that much time, so we'll have to be quick and dirty. The parallel resistance of R3 and Ra is something less than 30 ©, but greater than 15. (since the parallel resistance of two 30 Q resistors would be 15.2). As a guess, let's call it 20.0. ‘That resistance in series with Rs gives about 50.0, which is in parallel with Ro; the resistance of this combination (Re in parallel with the combination of R3, Ry, and Rs) is then 25 Q. Now you need to remember how voltage dividers work. The voltage dropped across a resistor R in a divider is given by Vion where Vror is the total voltage across the divider and Rror is the total restistance of the divider. In this case, the numbers are easy -- 2 volts are dropped across Ry and the remaining 1 V is dropped across the ‘combination of all the other resistors. So, 1 Vis dropped across the right-most tee of resistors (R3, Rg, and Rs). We estimated that the parallel combination of R3 and Rg had a resistance of about 20 Q, so the voltage across it is about