Beyond The Five Week 0: Dimensional Analysis and Limiting Cases

Dimensional Analysis / Limiting Cases

Chapter 1 of both Halliday and Serway cover measurement and dimensional analysis in depth. Combined with
checking for limiting cases (Morin does a fabulous job in 1.3), it can be extremely powerful for double checking
solutions and even ”guessing” answers! As a quick review, here are the International System of Base Units for
the following measurements:

• length → meter (m) • time → second (s) • mass → kilogram (kg)

Be mindful that the following problems do not reflect the AP exam. They are either important
skills you’ll need for this course or fun brainteasers.

Dimensional Analysis and Measurement

Helpful Tip

Check order of magnitude if you end up getting a numerical answer.

If you end up with an actual numerical answer to a problem, be sure to do a sanity check to see if the
number is reasonable. If you’ve calculated the distance along the ground that a car skids before it comes
to rest, and if you’ve gotten an answer of a kilometer or a millimeter, then you know you’ve probably
done something wrong. Errors of this sort often come from forgetting some powers of 10 (say, when
converting kilometers to meters) or from multiplying something instead of dividing.

Problem 1. A sidewalk is to be constructed around a swimming pool that measures 10.0m by 17m. If the
sidewalk is to measure 100 cm wide and 90 mm thick, what volume of concrete is needed?
Problem 2. As we will learn in week 3, the dimensions of force (represented by F ) is kg · m/s2 . In week 11,
we’ll show that the gravitational force between two objects is given by
Gm1 m2
F =
d2
where m1 and m2 represent the masses of the two objects and d represents the distance between the two objects.
In order to have the dimensions of force, what are the units of the constant G?
Problem 3. In the following xkcd comic, Cueball states a dimensionally correct approximation of π. Take the
3
planck energy to be Eplank = 1.956 × 109 J, the pressure of the Earth to be Pcore = 3.5 × 1011 J/m , the Prius
7 −2
combined gas mileage to be 50 mpg = 2.1 × 10 m and the minimum width of the English Channel to be
33.1 km. Verify the claim and determine the percent error. Note that the percent error is given by:
|accepted − approximate|
%error = × 100%
accepted
Beyond The Five Week 0: Dimensional Analysis and Limiting Cases

Problem 4. All grown up, Little Willie (now Big Will) works for the Canadian Central Bank. Looking
to find other uses for the sagging Canadian Dollar, Big Will proposes a new system of units, in which all
physical quantities are measured in Canadian dollars (CAD). Based on his yearly salary, Big Will sets 1 year =
50, 000 CAD. Based on the mass of the loonie coin, he sets 6.27 grams = 1 CAD. Finally, based on the cost of
his daily cab ride to work, he sets 10 km = 20 CAD. What is Big Will’s weight in the new units, if his mass in
the ordinary SI units is 80kg? Note that the equation for weight in SI units is
2
weight = mass × 9.8 m/s

Helpful Tip

If you are solving a problem where the given quantities are specified numerically, you should immediately
change the numbers to letters and solve the problem in terms of the letters. After you obtain an answer
in terms of the letters, you can plug in the actual numerical values to obtain a numerical answer. There
are many advantages to using letters:

• It’s quicker. It’s much easier to multiply a g by an l by writing them down on a piece of paper
next to each other, than it is to multiply them together on a calculator. And with the latter
strategy, you’d undoubtedly have to pick up your calculator at least a few times during the course
of a problem.
• You’re less likely to make a mistake. It’s very easy to mistype an 8 for a 9 in a calculator,
but you’re probably not going to miswrite a q for a g on a piece of paper. But if you do, you’ll
quickly realize that it should be a g. You certainly won’t just give up on the problem and deem it
unsolvable because no one gave you the value of q!
• You can do the problem once and for all. If someone comes along and says, oops, the value
of l is actually 2.4 m instead of 2.3 m, then you won’t have to do the whole problem again. You
can simply plug the new value of l into your final symbolic answer.
• You can see the general dependence of your answer on the various given quantities.
For example, you can see that it grows with quantities a and b, decreases with c, and doesn’t
depend on d. There is much, much more information contained in a symbolic answer than in a
numerical one. And besides, symbolic answers nearly always look nice and pretty.

• You can check units and special cases. These checks go hand-in-hand with the previous
“general dependence” advantage. In the next section, you will see just how powerful these last two
methods truly are.

Problem 5. Historically, the meter was intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole
to the equator along the meridian line through Paris. For the purposes of this problem, let us assume this is
true. We also know Jupiter’s surface area is 6.142 × 1010 km2 . How many Earths can fit inside Jupiter?
Problem 6. Later on, it was discovered the diameter of the Earth is 12742 km. Approximating the Earth as a
perfect sphere, what is the actual distance from the north pole to the equator? What is the percent error from
earlier estimates?
3 3
Problem 7. Let ρAl = 2.7 g/cm represent the density of aluminum and ρFe = 7.87 g/cm represent the
density of iron. Find the radius of a solid aluminum sphere that balances a solid iron sphere of radius rFe on
an equal-arm balance.

Checking Limiting Cases

Sample Question

A golfer is standing on level ground. She hits the golf ball at an angle θ and gives it an initial speed of
v. Without solving the problem explicitly, which of the following gives the horizontal distance travelled
when the ball lands on the ground? (Note: the constant g has units m/s2 )

v v2 v2 v2 v2
sin(2θ) , cos(2θ) , sin(2θ) , sin(θ) , tan(2θ)
g g g g g
Beyond The Five Week 0: Dimensional Analysis and Limiting Cases

Sample Solution

First, perform a dimensional analysis. The first option has units (ms−1 )/(ms−2 ) = s−1 while the other
options have units of (ms−1 )2 /(ms−2 ) = m which is the desired unit. Thus, it must be one of the last
four equations.

Next check cases. If θ = 0, we know that the horizontal distance is zero as it doesn’t even go in the air!
Out of the remaining four expressions, only the last three satisfy this condition when θ = 0 is plugged
in. If θ = 90◦ then the horizontal distance is also 0 as the golf ball is hit straight up and falls back down
to where it started. Only the third and last expressions satisfy this condition. Finally, we can plug in
θ = 45◦ . It’s not immediately obvious what the answer should be. However, plugging it into the last
2
expression gives vg tan(90◦ ) = ∞ which we know definitely isn’t true.

v2
Thus, the correct answer is sin(2θ).
g

Problem 8. A person throws a ball (at an angle of her choosing, to achieve the maximum distance) with speed
v from the edge ofa cliff of height h. Assuming that one of the following quantities is the maximum horizontal
distance the ball can travel, which one is it? (Don’t solve the problem from scratch, just check special cases.)
s r
gh v 2 v2 h v2 2gh v 2 v 2 /g
 
2gh
, , , 1 + , 1 + ,
v2 g g g v2 g v2 1 − 2ghv2

Problem 9. A ball is thrown at an angle θ up to the top of a cliff of height L, from a point a distance L from
the base, as shown below. Assuming that one of the following quantities is the initial speed required to make
the ball hit right at the edge of the cliff, which one is it? (Don’t solve the problem from scratch, just check
special cases.)
s s s s
gl 1 gL 1 gL gL tan θ
, , ,
2(tan θ − 1) cos θ 2(tan θ − 1) cos θ 2(tan θ + 1) 2(tanθ + 1)

Problem 10. A cone frustum has base radius b, top radius a, and height h, as shown below. Assuming that
one of the following quantities is the volume of the frustum, which one is it? (Don’t solve the problem from
scratch, just check special cases.)

πh a4 + b4
 
πh 2 2 πh 2 2 πh 2 2
(a + b ) , (a + b ) , (a + ab + b ) , , πhab
3 2 3 3 a2 + b2