TOPIC 7 TUTORIAL PROBLEMS

HOW DOES A SPEED CAMERA WORK?

Data: g = 9.80 ms2 ; c = 3.00 108 ms1 (speed of light); vsound = 343 ms1 (in air)

1. A person is sitting in a kayak out at sea. They rise and fall as the waves pass them.
They notice that the period of the waves is 1.2 s and the wavelength is 6.2 m.
a) What is the frequency of the wave?
b) What is the speed of the wave?

2. A radio tower sends out a radio signal with a wavelength of 2.0 m.

a) What is the speed of the radio wave?
b) How long does it take the wave to travel 2.0 km?
c) What is the frequency of the wave?
d) What is the period of the wave?

3. Seismologists can locate the position of the epicentre of an earthquake by comparing

the arrival time between two different types of waves at three locations. These waves are
primary waves, or P waves, with a speed vP = 4800 m/s and secondary waves, S waves,
with a speed vS = 2900 m/s.
a) P waves are longitudinal waves. Use a diagram to explain what a longitudinal wave is.
b) S waves are transverse waves, draw a diagram to show what a transverse wave is.
c) At one base station the P wave is detected 3.5 seconds before the S wave. What is the
distance of the base station to the epicentre?
d) Can you think of the reason 3 base stations are required to pinpoint the epicentre?

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2 HOW DOES A SPEED CAMERA WORK?

4.

For the two diagrams above show a pulse (part of a wave) sent along a piece of rope. For
each of these cases sketch a diagram showing what happens to the pulse after it reaches
the boundary. You should think about:

is it transmitted, reflected or both?

is there a phase change?
does the wavelength change?
5. You are cycling along the road at 30km/h when an ambulance comes up behind you
with its sirens blazing. You hear a frequency of 800 Hz. The ambulance is travelling with
a speed of 90 km/h.
a) What frequency do the people in the ambulance hear?
b) Once the ambulance has overtake you (assume that you both continue to travel with
the same speed) what frequency do you hear?

6. Two submarines, sub A and sub B, approach each other head on in a training exercise.
Sub A sends a sonar signal with a frequency of 1200 Hz to sub B. The sonar signal travels
through water with a speed of 1500 m/s. If sub A is travelling northwards with a velocity
of 8.000 m/s and sub B is travelling southward at 6.000 m/s:
a) As they approach each other what frequency does sub B detect?
b) After passing (and narrowly missing each other) they continue travelling at the same
speed and in the same direction. What frequency does sub B detect now?

7. Bats chase down their prey by sending out ultrasonic sound signals and then listening
to the echo (reflection). This gives them information about their distance from the prey
and the speed the prey is travelling at. If a bat travelling at 5.0 m/s emits a chirp at
40.0 kHz and receives a signal back at 40.4 kHz from an insect trying to escape by flying
directly away from the bat:
a) Write down an expression for the frequency detected by the insect, f 0 . Express your
answer in terms of the velocity of the bat, vbat , the velocity of the insect, vinsect , the speed
of sound, vsound and the frequency emitted by the bat, f .
b) Write an expression for the frequency detected by the bat, f 00 when it has reflected off
the insect.
 TOPIC 7 TUTORIAL PROBLEMS 3

c) Use this expression to calculate the speed of the insect.

d) Does the bat catch the insect?

8. An ant, a snail and a lizard have a race. They all head northwards with speeds
vant = 6.56 mm/s, vsnail = 0.130 m/s and vlizard = 0.500 m/s.
a) What is the velocity of the ant relative to the lizard?
b) What is the velocity of the lizard relative to the snail?
c) What is the velocity of the ant relative to the snail?

9. You stand on the bank and watch a friend row a row boat across a 25.0 m wide river.
On still water your friend can row at 5.00 m/s. However, this river has a current flowing
at 2.00 m/s downstream as shown in the diagram. Your friend attempts to row directly
across the river but is pushed downstream by the current.

a) What is the velocity of your friend relative to you?
b) How long does it take your friend to cross the river?
c) How far downstream does your friend end up?

10. An ultrasound device uses a signal with a frequency of 7.00 MHz. This signal con-
sists of sound waves with a velocity of 1540 ms1 inside the human body.
a) What is the wavelength of this signal inside the human body?
b) If the signal takes 1.95 104 s to return to the scanner after leaving the scanner and
reflecting off part of a baby, how far is that part of the baby from the scanner?
4 HOW DOES A SPEED CAMERA WORK?

Answers:
1. 0.83 Hz; 5.2 m
2. 3.00 108 ms1 ; 6.7 106 s; 1.5 108 Hz; 6.7 109 s
3. 26 km
5. 760 Hz; 730 Hz
6. 1211 Hz; 1189 Hz
7. 3.3 m/s
8. 0.493 m/s south; 0.370 m/s north; 0.123 m/s south
9. 5.39 m/s at and angle 21.8o downstream of line directly across river; 5.00 s; 10.0 m
10. 2.20 104 m; 0.150 m