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Foundations of Science 5 - Physics

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FOS 5 - Physics

Homework Set #1
Due Date: Thursday 1 September, 2016 at 5:00pm

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Readings: Morin 1.1,1.2; Smith Ch 1.1-1.10, 2,3,
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Problems:
1. Design a Foucault pendulum which will hang from the bottom of the
highest occupied floor of Burj Khalifa (a height of 584.5 m) to 0.5m
above the ground, and is designed to barely knock over 240 equally
spaced, 1meter high pins that are arranged in a circle around the
equilibrium point. You are free to use whatever materials for the bob and
rod that you like, as long as they are real (eg. you could use steel, spider
silk, kevlar etc. for the rod) and the rod would physically support the bob
without breaking (i.e. its tensile strength of the rod is great enough to
support its own weight and the bob). Note that the angular rate of
apparent change of direction of the swing is 360o sin /day where theta is
the latitude of the pendulum.
1.a) What is the period of your pendulum?
1.b) What is the radius of the circle? How accurate is the sin ~
approximation?
1.c) How many swings would it take between knocking over rods?

2. A system consisting of a diver at the end of a diving board has a natural

frequency of 1 Hz. At what amplitude of oscillation will the diver start
losing contact with the diving board at the top of the oscillation?

3. Consider the following potential energy:

V(x)= A[ (B/x)12 - (B/x)6]

Near the potential minimum, what is for a mass m? Note that this is
the expression often used for the van der Waals attraction between two
atoms among other things at the atomic scale.

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4. Let z1 = 3ei/6 and z2 = 2ei/3

a) Draw z1 and z2 on a phasor diagram
b) Find z3 = z1 + z2
c) What is the amplitude and phase of z3 ? Draw z3 on your phasor
diagram.