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Open-Response Homework 27: Practice Test for Exam 4

Problem 1
(a)[5 pts] In order for an object to be in static (mechanical) equilibrium, what are the two conditions (of
the form sum of something = 0) that need to be satisfied?
(b)[15 pts] At the park, you notice two children sitting on a seesaw (teeter totter). The 25kg girl is sitting
10cm from the end of a 3m long seesaw, which has inertia 10kg. Her 30kg friend is sitting on the other
side at the proper location to keep the seesaw balanced perfectly level.
(i) Draw an extended free body diagram for the seesaw.
(ii) How far from the pivot does the 30kg friend sit to keep the seesaw balanced? (Assume the pivot is
in the middle of the seesaw, and neither childs force on the seesaw has a horizontal component.)
Problem 2 A 2.0 kg cylinder of radius 0.2 m rolls without slipping down a ramp inclined to the horizontal at an
angle of 30
(a)[3 pts] What is the acceleration of the cylinders center of mass?
(b)[3 pts] What is the magnitude of the frictional force exerted on the cylinder?
(c)[3 pts] What is the cylinders total kinetic energy and angular momentum at the bottom of the ramp, if
the vertical drop is 1 m? (assume it starts from rest)
Problem 3
Hohmann orbits are the lowest energy orbits to move things from
one planet to another in a solar system. Suppose you are trying
to send a probe from the Earth to Mars in this way. The idea is
to put the probe in an elliptical orbit around the sun (the sun is
at one focus) such that when it leaves the Earth it is at one end
(the short end) of the major axis, and when it arrives to Mars it is
at the far end of the same axis. Take the distance from the Earth
to the sun to be 1.5 1011 m, and from Mars to the sun to be
2.3 1011 m. The mass of the sun is 2.0 1030 kg.

Mars orbit
Hohmann orbit

Earths orbit
Mars
at arrival
Sun

Earth
at launch

(a)[5 pts] Totally unrelated to the rest of the problem: What

is gsun at the surface of the sun, given that the suns
radius is 7 108 m?
(b)[8 pts] Suppose the mass of the probe is 1, 000 kg. What
must be its total energy when it is turning around the
sun in the Hohmann orbit described above?
(c)[10 pts] Shortly after the probe has been launched from the Earth (that is to say, it is still about the same
distance from the sun as the Earth is) what must its velocity be? Assume that by this point the probe
has escaped the gravitational pull of the Earth, so you dont have to worry about that, just about it
having the right energy for the Hohmann orbit.
(d)[6 pts] What is its angular momentum about the sun at this time?
(e)[3 pts] How does the answer to the previous part compare to the angular momentum of the probe about
the sun when the probe is approaching Mars?
Problem 4 An object is attached to a spring in such a way that it undergoes simple harmonic motion with a
period of 0.5 s.
(a)[3 pts] What is the angular frequency of the oscillations?
(b)[3 pts] If the mass of the object is 0.2 kg, what is the value of the spring constant, k?
(c)[3 pts] If the amplitude of the oscillations is 10cm, what is the total energy of the spring-object system?
(d)[3 pts] Under the assumption above, what is the maximum velocity of the object?
(e)[3 pts] What is the maximum acceleration of the object?

(f)[3 pts] Write down a formula for the position of the object as a function of time, x(t), assuming that
its velocity is maximum at t = 0. Identify the value of all the constants that you use, and sketch the
resulting curve.
Problem 5 The longest string on a grand piano is 1 m long and oscillates with a frequency of 27.5 Hz. Take the
length of the string to be half that of the wavelength of the corresponding standing wave .
(a)Sketch the shape of the string with this standing wave upon it.
(b)What is the speed of the waves on the string?