Oscillations and Waves

Chapter 10
Oscillations and Waves
Problems
11–1 to 11–3 Simple Harmonic Motion
1. (I) If a particle undergoes SHM with amplitude 0.21 m, what is the total distance it travels in one
period?
2. (I) The springs of a 1700-kg car compress 5.0 mm when its 66-kg driver gets into the driver’s
seat. If the car goes over a bump, what will be the frequency of oscillations? Ignore damping.
3. (II) An elastic cord is 61 cm long when a weight of 75 N hangs from it but is 85 cm long when a
weight of 210 N hangs from it. What is the “spring” constant k of this elastic cord?
5. (II) A fisherman’s scale stretches 3.6 cm when a 2.4-kg fish hangs from it.
(a) What is the spring stiffness constant and
(b) what will be the amplitude and frequency of oscillation if the fish is pulled down 2.1 cm
more and released so that it oscillates up and down?
6. (II) A small fly of mass 0.22 g is caught in a spider’s web. The web oscillates predominantly
with a frequency of 4.0 Hz.
(a) What is the value of the effective spring stiffness constant k for the web?
(b) At what frequency would you expect the web to oscillate if an insect of mass 0.44 g were
trapped?
8. (II) A vertical spring with spring stiffness constant 305 N/m oscillates with an amplitude of
28.0 cm when 0.235 kg hangs from it. The mass passes through
the equilibrium point (y = 0) with positive velocity at t = 0.
(a) What equation describes this motion as a function of time?
(b) At what times will the spring be longest and shortest?
9. (II) Figure shows two examples of SHM, labeled A and B.
For each, what is
(a) the amplitude, (b) the frequency, and (c) the period?
11. (II) At what displacement of a SHO is the energy half kinetic and half potential?
12. (II) An object of unknown mass m is hung from a vertical spring of unknown spring constant k,
and the object is observed to be at rest when the spring has stretched by 14 cm. The object is then
given a slight push upward and executes SHM. Determine the period T of this oscillation.
13. (II) A 1.65-kg mass stretches a vertical spring 0.215 m. If the spring is stretched an additional
0.130 m and released, how long does it take to reach the (new) equilibrium position again?
14. (II) A 1.15-kg mass oscillates according to the equation x = 0.650 cos (8.40t) where x is in
meters and t in seconds. Determine
(a) the amplitude, (b) the frequency, (c) the total energy, and
(d) the kinetic energy and potential energy when x = 0.360 m.
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15. (II) A 0.25-kg mass at the end of a spring oscillates 2.2 times per second with an amplitude of
0.15 m. Determine
(a) the speed when it passes the equilibrium point,
(b) the speed when it is 0.10 m from equilibrium,
(c) the total energy of the system, and
(d) the equation describing the motion of the mass, assuming that at t = 0, x was a maximum.
16. (II) It takes a force of 91.0 N to compress the spring of a toy popgun 0.175 m to “load” a
0.160-kg ball. With what speed will the ball leave the gun if fired horizontally?
17. (II) If one oscillation has 3.0 times the energy of a second one of equal frequency and mass, what
is the ratio of their amplitudes?
20. (II) At t = 0, an 885-g mass at rest on the end of a horizontal spring (k = 184 N/m) is struck by a
hammer which gives it an initial speed of 2.26 m/s. Determine
(a) the period and frequency of the motion, (b) the amplitude,
(c) the maximum acceleration, (d) the total energy, and
(e) the kinetic energy when x = 0.40A where A is the amplitude.
21. (III) Agent Arlene devised the following method of
measuring the muzzle velocity of a rifle. She fires a
bullet into a 4.148-kg wooden block resting on a
smooth surface, and attached to a spring of spring
constant k = 162.7 N/m. The bullet, whose mass is
7.870 g, remains embedded in the wooden block.
She measures the maximum distance that the block
compresses the spring to be 9.460 cm.
What is the speed v of the bullet?
22. (III) A bungee jumper with mass 65.0 kg jumps from a high bridge. After arriving at his lowest
point, he oscillates up and down, reaching a low point seven more times in 43.0 s. He finally
comes to rest 25.0 m below the level of the bridge. Estimate the spring stiffness constant and the
unstretched length of the bungee cord assuming SHM.
24. (III) A 1.60-kg object oscillates at the end of a vertically hanging light spring once every 0.45 s.
(a) Write down the equation giving its position y (+ upward) as a function of time t. Assume the
object started by being compressed 16 cm from the equilibrium position (where y = 0), and
released.
(b) How long will it take to get to the equilibrium position for the first time?
(c) What will be its maximum speed?
(d) What will be the object’s maximum acceleration, and where will it first be attained?
11–4 Simple Pendulum
25. (I) A pendulum has a period of 1.85 s on Earth. What is its period on Mars, where the
acceleration of gravity is about 0.37 that on Earth?

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27. (I) A pendulum makes 28 oscillations in exactly 50 s. What is its (a) period and (b) frequency?
28. (II) What is the period of a simple pendulum 47 cm long
(a) on the Earth, and (b) when it is in a freely falling elevator?
29. (II) Your grandfather clock’s pendulum has a length of 0.9930 m. If the clock runs slow and
loses 21 s per day, how should you adjust the length of the pendulum?
30. (II) Derive a formula for the maximum speed vmax of a simple pendulum bob in terms of g, the
length l, and the maximum angle of swing max.
31. (III) A clock pendulum oscillates at a frequency of 2.5 Hz. At t = 0, it is released from rest
starting at an angle of 12° to the vertical. Ignoring friction, what will be the position (angle in
radians) of the pendulum at (a) t = 0.25 s, (b) t = 1.60 s, and (c) t = 500 s?
11–7 and 11–8 Waves
32. (I) A fisherman notices that wave crests pass the bow of his anchored boat every 3.0 s. He
measures the distance between two crests to be 7.0 m. How fast are the waves traveling?
35. (I) AM radio signals have frequencies between 550 kHz and 1600 kHz (kilohertz) and travel
with a speed of 3.0 × 108 m/s. What are the wavelengths of these signals? On FM the frequencies
range from 88 MHz to 108 MHz (megahertz) and travel at the same speed. What are their
wavelengths?
36. (II) P and S waves from an earthquake travel at different speeds, and this difference helps locate
the earthquake “epicenter” (where the disturbance took place).
(a) Assuming typical speeds of 8.5 km/s and 5.5 km/s for P and S waves, respectively, how far
away did an earthquake occur if a particular seismic station detects the arrival of these two types
of waves 1.5 min apart?
(b) Is one seismic station sufficient to determine the position of the epicenter? Explain.
38. (II) A 0.40-kg cord is stretched between two supports, 8.7 m apart. When one support is struck
by a hammer, a transverse wave travels down the cord and reaches the other support in 0.85 s.
What is the tension in the cord?
39. (II) A sailor strikes the side of his ship just below the surface of the sea. He hears the echo of the
wave reflected from the ocean floor directly below 2.4 s later. How deep is the ocean at this
point?
11–9 Energy Transported by Waves
41. (II) What is the ratio of
(a) the intensities, and (b) the amplitudes,
of an earthquake P wave passing through the Earth and detected at two points 15 km and 45 km
from the source?
42. (II) The intensity of an earthquake wave passing through the Earth is measured to be
3.0 × 106 J/m2 • s at a distance of 54 km from the source.
(a) What was its intensity when it passed a point only 1.0 km from the source?
(b) At what rate did energy pass through an area of 2.0 m2 at 1.0 km?

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43. (II) A bug on the surface of a pond is observed to move up and down a total vertical distance of
7.0 cm, from the lowest to the highest point, as a wave passes. If the ripples decrease to 4.5 cm,
by what factor does the bug’s maximum KE change?
11–11 Interference
44. (I) The two pulses shown are moving toward each other.
(a) Sketch the shape of the string at the moment they
directly overlap.
(b) Sketch the shape of the string a few moments later.
(c) In Fig. 11–37a, at the moment the pulses pass each other, the string is straight. What has
happened to the energy at this moment?
11–12 Standing Waves; Resonance
45. (I) If a violin string vibrates at 440 Hz as its fundamental frequency, what are the frequencies of
the first four harmonics?
46. (I) A violin string vibrates at 294 Hz when unfingered. At what frequency will it vibrate if it is
fingered one-third of the way down from the end? (That is, only two-thirds of the string vibrates
as a standing wave.)
48. (II) The speed of waves on a string is 97 m/s. If the frequency of standing waves is 475 Hz, how
far apart are two adjacent nodes?
50. (II) One end of a horizontal string is attached to a small-
amplitude mechanical 60.0-Hz oscillator. The string’s
mass per unit length is 3.5 × 10–4 kg/m. The string
passes over a pulley, a distance l = 1.50 m away, and
weights are hung from this end. What mass m must be
hung from this end of the string to produce
(a) one loop, (b) two loops, and (c) five loops of a standing wave?
Assume the string at the oscillator is a node, which is nearly true.
51. (II) In Problem 50 (refer to the same figure), the length l of the string may be adjusted by moving
the pulley. If the hanging mass m is fixed at 0.080 kg, how many different standing wave
patterns may be achieved by varying l between 10 cm and 1.5 m?
52. (II) When you slosh the water back and forth in a tub at just the right frequency, the water
alternately rises and falls at each end, remaining relatively calm at the center. Suppose the
frequency to produce such a standing wave in a 75-cm-wide tub is 0.85 Hz. What is the speed of
the water wave?

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