PHY 181, Spring 2012

01/13/2012

Problem Set #1

(21 points) Due Friday, January 20, in class. Please clearly write your name and PS #1 at the top of each page you hand in. 1. Consider a unit cube with one corner at the origin and three adjacent sides lying along the three axes of a rectangular coordinate system. (a) (2 pts) Find the vectors describing the diagonals of the cube. (b) (2 pts) What is the angle between any pair of diagonals? 2. For the two vectors A = e1 + 2e2 e3 and B = 2e1 + 3e2 + e3 , nd the following: (a) (2 pts) A B and |A B| (b) (2 pts) the angle between A and B (c) (2 pts) A B (d) (2 pts) (A B) (A + B) 3. Let a, b, c be three constant vectors drawn from the origin to the points A, B, C. (a) (3 pts) What is the distance from the origin to the plane dened by the points A, B, C? (b) (3 pts) What is the area of the triangle ABC? 4. (3 pts) A particle moves in a plane elliptical orbit described by the position vector r(t) = 2b sin t ex + b cos t ey . Find the velocity vector v, the acceleration a, and the particle speed.