PHY

2048C Sec 2 Spring 2019 UCF

Non-Comprehensive Review for Midterm #3

Caveat: As the title implies, this is not meant to be a comprehensive review of
everything that has been done in the course up to now. This is simply a collection of
important concepts – phrased as questions – that I think are important. You can
consider it a “study guide” but, again, it is not necessarily complete. In other words,
do not assume that you will ace the test simply by just only reviewing this
document. Use it as a guide to understand what concepts you might be unsure
about. Note that this is also not intended to be a review of the quantitative aspects of
the course; use homework problems and the numerical examples in class to review
problem-solving techniques.

Here are the classes in which we covered material that's available for Midterm #3.
Note that there could be material in the textbook that is also available for Midterm
#3 that we did not cover in class.

Ch9 – class 21, 22, 24, 25, 26.
Ch10 – class 27, 28, 29, 30.


Chapter 9

What is the momentum vector parallel to? How are momentum and velocity vectors
related? How are momentum and kinetic energy related? How are impulse and
momentum related?

What is the difference between an instantaneous impulse and an integrated
impulse?

Is the force that provides an impulse always going to be constant?

How do you take the time-average of a continuously-variable quantity?

Does the impulse vector always lie parallel to the final momentum vector? Why or
why not?

If a force acts on an object along only one axis, but the velocity lies along a different
axis, how does the impulse from that force change the momentum?

How does the impulse felt by a blob of clay falling to the ground and sticking
compare to the impulse felt by a ball of the same mass falling to the ground and
bouncing? Does one feel a greater impulse? Why?

For an object that starts out at some downward (falling) velocity and ends up with
zero velocity, does the impulse felt by the object depend on what kind of force is
slowing the object down? In other words, will the kind of force – say a gentle one or
a sharp one – affect the magnitude of the impulse?

What about the impulse felt by a stunt person who safely lands on an inflatable bag
after jumping off a building? What about that process – in terms of force, time, and
impulse – makes that safer than just crashing into the ground?

How does the impulse change mathematically depending on how you set up your
axes for the problem?

Is there ever a situation where the impulse is related to the initial-minus-final
momentum instead of the final-minus-initial?

What is it about Newton’s Third Law that helps show why the conservation of
momentum is so convenient?

Does conservation of momentum and conservation of mechanical energy have to
both hold in every case where one holds? In other words, do you by necessity have
to have both or neither?

What is the difference in terms of kinetic energy of an elastic collision vs. an inelastic
collision? What is the difference in terms of total momentum of an elastic collision
vs. an inelastic collision?

What is so special about internal forces when considering whether conservation of
momentum is applicable?

Why is it important to think about what “system” you will consider when dealing
with a conservation of momentum problem?

If a system feels a net external force, will the system’s initial momentum ever equal
the final momentum?

If a system feels a net external force, can you use conservation of momentum to
determine the nature of the internal forces between objects or particles within the
system?

If a system feels a constant net external force for a certain length of time, what is the
final momentum minus the initial momentum?

If a system feels no net external force, what is the final momentum minus the initial
momentum?

What do you have to do to change a certain force that was considered an external
force into an internal force?

Does conservation of momentum have to work in all 3 spatial dimensions for it to
work at all, or can it work individually dimension-by-dimension? In other words can
you have conservation of momentum in the y-direction while not having it in the x-
direction?

If a system feels any external force, must it then by necessity not satisfy
conservation of momentum? What if it feels two such external forces that happen to
balance? What if it feels two such external forces that happen to balance in just (say)
the x-direction but do not balance in (say) the y-direction?

For a system that’s initially at rest (zero initial total momentum and zero initial
kinetic energy) but then ends up with multiple objects moving (non-zero final total
momentum and non-zero final kinetic energy), what would you have to do to use
conservation of mechanical energy in order to determine info about the objects’
velocities?

If both conservation of momentum and conservation of mechanical energy hold for
a system, what can you say about net work being done by forces within the system?

If only conservation of momentum holds, but not conservation of mechanical
energy, what can you say about net work being done by forces within the system.

If you are given some info about the approach or depart angles of objects colliding
within a system, is the x-component of an object’s velocity always going to be
related to cosine of the angle?

Even though gravity often operates on objects that collide, what shortcut can we
invoke when dealing with a collision problem in order to remove the effect of
gravity from the problem?

For a system of particles, how is the total momentum related to the total mass of the
system and the velocity of the system’s center of mass?

For rockets, what modifications would allow you to increase the boost (dv) in
rocket’s speed?

Why do rockets start out on the ground with such a large fraction of their total mass
being fuel?

What is the basic principle involved for why a rocket goes up from the launch pad?
Does the same principle work if the rocket were in Earth-orbit or in deep space?



Chapter 10

Why does the relationship between angular displacement, velocity, and acceleration
and the corresponding linear quantities require the use of radians in the units?

Does the entire linear acceleration of an object depend on the angular acceleration,
or just one component? If just one, which one?

Does the entire linear velocity of an object depend on the angular velocity, or just
one component? If just one, which one?

How does the linear displacement compare to the angular displacement in an object
moving in circular motion? Are they the same?

How does the distance between two objects that are traveling on the same circle and
doing circular motion compare to the arc length between them?

For a solid, rigid object rotating around some axis, does the angular velocity depend
on how far a certain chunk of mass in the object is from the axis? Does the tangential
velocity depend on that?

Can a solid, rigid object have multiple angular velocities? Can a solid, rigid object
have multiple tangential velocities?

How do determine the vector of angular velocity from the sense of an object’s spin?

If the angular acceleration vector points in the same direction as the angular
velocity vector, what can you say about whether the object is spinning up or
spinning down? Is that true even if both vectors are pointing in the negative
direction?

If the angular acceleration vector points in the opposite direction as the angular
velocity vector, what can you say about whether the object is spinning up or
spinning down? Is that true even if the angular velocity vector is pointing in the
negative direction?

For an angular velocity vector that points in the negative direction, and an angular
acceleration vector that points in the positive direction, what is happening
numerically to the angular velocity? Is it getting numerically bigger or smaller?
Does this portray spin-up or spin-down?

Can a negative angular velocity ever describe an object that is spinning up?

What is the convention with deciding whether an angular velocity is positive or
negative?

Is there a relationship between centripetal acceleration and angular acceleration?

Is the moment of inertia of an object independent of what axis it is spinning around?
Why or why not?

If two differently-shaped objects of the same mass are spinning around the same
axis, but one has a higher moment of inertia than the other, what does that in
general say about how the mass is distributed with respect to the axis?

If two identical objects are spinning around different axes, what assessment can you
make to try to gauge which case has the higher moment of inertia?

If two differently-shaped objects of the same mass are spinning around the same
axis, but one has a higher fraction of its mass closer to the spin axis, what can you
say about the relative moments of inertia?

What is the difference – in terms of kinetic energy – between an object sliding down
a ramp and an object rolling (without slipping) down the same ramp?

For an object that starts with no kinetic energy but some potential energy, how does
the moment of inertia of the object play into determining how much translational
kinetic energy the object could have once the potential energy drops to zero?

What does the principal-axis theorem suggest about the moment of inertia of an
object with a spin axis that’s parallel but offset from one that’s through the center of
mass vs. the moment of inertia of an object with a spin axis that’s through the center
of mass? Can such a moment of inertia ever be smaller?

How do you determine the direction of a torque vector?

How do you determine the angle between a radius vector and force vector? Where
do you have to put the vectors to be able to determine that angle?

How is the “r” in the basic formula for the torque’s magnitude (Frsinθ) compare to
the lever arm? Are they always the same, or always different? Or are there situations
where they are sometimes the same? What situations are those?

In what situations can you have a net force being applied to an object but have zero
torque? How does the net force have to be oriented?

How do you figure out what the length of the lever arm is?

If you push on an object to get it spinning about some axis, does the torque you
apply change if the location you apply the force changes? If so, in what sense does
the torque change as you push closer or farther from the axis?

What is immediately notable about a torque from a force vector that is being in a
direction that is parallel but in the opposite direction from the radius vector?

If you have a non-zero angular acceleration, does that mean that you must also have
a non-zero net torque?

How do the net torque vector and the angular acceleration vector compare, in terms
of direction?

If an object is not spinning at all, does that mean that there must be no forces on it?
What about a net force? What about a net torque? What about one individual
torque?

If an object is spinning with some angular velocity, does that mean that there must
be no forces on it? What about a net force? What about a net torque?

When adding up torques to find a net torque, how do you account for torques that
are pushing in opposite senses of rotation?

If there is net work being done on a spinning object, how does that change the
kinetic energy, if the object only has a rotational kinetic energy and no translational?
In such a case what happens to the spin if the net work is negative?