Physics Brawl CHS TST

Anthony Ou

November 5, 2017

This is the try-out test to select teams for the Online Physics Brawl in
Carmel High School. The test has a total of 55 points and should take approx-
imately 3 hours to complete. Each question and question part of the test are
completely independent of each other, meaning that you dont have to complete
any other part of the test to get that question part. The points are distributed
such that the hardest questions are worth more points and typically take longer.
Also, many of the problems are quite challenging, therefore, it is recommended
that you do the questions with the lowest number of points first before trying
the harder problems. You have full access to any and all textbooks and online
references for this exam, but you cannot ask others for help. Teams will be
selected based on the number of points that you get, in the case of ties, the
person who submitted their final response first will win. There is no partial
credit and answers will be correct if they are within 10 percent of the answer
key.

All answers will be submitted in scientific notation on the Google Form.

Please write all answers in the following notation: A 10B where A number
between 1 and 10, and B is the power of 10. For example, 5000 would be
5.0103 if 2 significant figures are required, and 0.050 would be 5.0102 Each
problem has a specified number of significant figures and units for submission.
Only submit numbers and do not include units in the submission. Multiple
submissions are allowed, and I will take only the last submission for as your
final submission. You do not need to answer every question to submit, all
blanks are worth 0 points. To submit, fill out this Google Form: https://goo.
gl/forms/0LGOn8oc0vFfH5Eo1

I will stop accepting submissions some time on Monday November 13th, so

try to get your submissions in before that time. Anyways, enjoy the problems!

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Problem 1: Springy Capacitors (15pt)

Two identical conducting plates (A, B) form a capacitor. Plate A has mass
m = 5kg and it is connected to a spring (which is an insulator) with spring
constant k = 10N/m. Plate B is fixed. At first, the spring is at its original
length of l = 0.5m and the two plates are at rest. The plates are initially
separated by distance d = 1mm (very small compared to the size of the plates),
and both plates have an area of A = 1m2 . Then, we apply a constant voltage
V0 = 5V through a battery between the two plates (A has higher voltage). Now
plate A starts oscillating.

a) When the battery not attached, if plate A is slightly displaced, what is the
resulting period of motion? Express in seconds with 3 significant figures. (1pt)

b) Before the plate A moves, what is the charge the plate? Express in coulombs
with 3 significant figures. (1pt)

c) If the battery has an internal resistance of R = 1, how long does it take

after the charging begins for the capacitor to have a potential of Vc = 4.5V ?
Express in nanoseconds with 4 significant figures. (2pt)

d) How much is the equilibrium position of plate A shifted? Express in meters

with 3 significant figures. (5pt)

e) If the angular frequency of oscillation is 0 when there was no battery, and

0 when the battery is attached, what is the difference, 0 0 between the
two? Express in radians per second with 3 significant figures. (6pt)

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Problem 2: Birthday Balloons (15pt)

a) Farmer Joe has a spherical balloon filled with oxygen of radius r = 0.3m,
a pressure of P = 150, 000P a and a temperature of T = 300K. Ignoring the
rubber, what is total mass of the air inside the balloon? Express in kilograms
with 3 significant figures. (1pt)

b) Farmer Joe is making balloons for his sons birthday. After he makes the
balloon, his son, John, enjoys uniformly compressing them. Assuming that
the balloon always maintains a spherical shape during and before compression.
How much work does John do to rapidly compress a balloon from a radius
of R = 0.5m? to a radius of R = 0.3m? The pressure of the balloon before
compression was P0 = 100, 000P a, and all gas inside the balloon are diatomic.
Also, assume that the compression was so fast, there was no time for heat
transfer. Express in joules with 4 significant figures. (2pt)

c) If the rubber of a balloon has a surface tension coefficient of = 100 kgs2 ,

what is the change of the surface energy in the rubber as it goes from a radius
of r = 0.1m to r = 0.5m? Express in joules with 4 significant figures. (1pt)

d) Farmer Joe has a large silo that is very very tall and is completely filled with
oxygen. Given that the temperature in the silo is constant at T = 300K with
height, and the pressure at ground level is P = 100, 000P a, what is the pressure
of the silo at h = 1000m above the ground? Express your answer in pascals
with 3 significant figures. (5pt)

e) Farmer Joe is holding onto a balloon that he spent a lot of work making.
Unfortunately, he let go of the balloon and the balloon drifted into the sky. The
temperature in the sky decreases at a constant rate with height at dT dz = .
This rate of decrease matches the rate of temperature decrease of the air inside
the balloon. Assume that no heat flows into the balloon as it ascends and the
rubber of the balloon has no surface tension. Taking the gas in the balloon
to be made of entirely diatomic molecules with average molecular weight of
g
m = 29 mol , what is the value of ? Express your answer in kelvin per meters
with 3 significant figures. (6pt)

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Problem 3: Neil Before Me (15pt)

a) Neil is an astronaut that is unfortunately stranded right outside his spaceship.

He is unable to get into the spaceship unless he can reach his tool that is situated
at a distance of d = 10m away from him and the spaceship. The combination
of Neil and his spaceship is M = 1000kg, and the tool has a mass of m = 1kg
and all are initially at rest. If the combination of Neil and his spaceship and
the tool can all be taken as point masses, how long will it take for the tool to
reach him when gravity is the only attractive force present? He is in a region
that is very far away from any celestial body so only consider the gravitational
interactions between Neil, the spaceship and the tool. Express in hours with 3
significant figures. (5pt)

b) Assuming the previous setup, how far will Neil and the spaceship move before
they reach the tool? Express in millimeters with 3 significant figures(2pt)

c) Now that Neil is on the spaceship, he can go home. The spaceship moves by
shooting out fuel at a constant speed, u = 300 m
s , with respect to the spaceship.
If the fuel is of mass mf = 100kg and the initial combined mass of the fuel,
Neil and the Spaceship is M = 1000kg, what is the final speed of Neil and the
spaceship? Express in meters per second with 3 significant figures. (4pt)

d) On his way home, Neil and his combined mass of m = 1000kg reaches a
large star of mass Ms = 5 1030 kg and is caught in the orbit. If the semi-major
axis of the orbit is a = 3 1010 m, how much energy does Neil need to spend to
escape the that star? Express in joules with 3 significant figures. (4pt)

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Problem 4: Cryptic Relativity (10 pt)

a) Alice is on a spaceship traveling to deliver a message to Bob. However, Eve

is flying towards Alice in hopes of intercepting the message. If Alice sees Eve
flying towards her with a speed of vE = 4c , what is the Lorentz factor associated
with Eve? Express with 4 significant figures. (2pt)

b) Eve sees Alice traveling with a velocity vA = 4c to the right, and Bob traveling
with a velocity vB = 2c to the left. If Eve measures the length of Bobs spaceship
to be LE = 10m, what would Alice measure the length of Bobs spaceship to
be? Express in meters with 4 significant figures. (4pt)

c) Eve sees Alice traveling with a velocity vA = 4c to the right, and Bob traveling
with a velocity vB = 2c to the left. Alice and Bob forgot how to break, so they
collide, and stick together in a giant flaming blob. If the rest mass of Alices
spaceship is mA = 500kg and the rest mass of Bobs spaceship is mB = 200kg,
what is the magnitude of the momentum of the resulting blob? Express your
answer with 4 significant figures in terms of kg*c where c is the speed of light.
(4pt)