DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ELECTRONICS

PHYSICS 1E1 CHAPTER 1 TUTORIAL 1/ 12 FEBRUARY 2026

A. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

1. A rectangular airstrip measures 32.30 m by 210 m, 5. Which of the following relationships is dimensionally
with the width measured more accurately than the consistent with an expression yielding a value for acceleration?
length. Find the area, taking into account significant Acceleration has the units of distance divided by time
figures.(a) 6.783 0 3 103 m 2 (b) 6.783 3 103 m 2 squared. In these equations, x is a distance, t is time, and v is
(c) 6.78 3 103 m2 (d) 6.8 3 103 m2 (e) 7 3 103 m2 velocity with units of distance divided by time. (a) v/t 2 (b)
v/x2 (c) v2/t (d) v2/x (e) none of these
2. Suppose two quantities, A and B, have different
dimen-sions. Determine which of the following 6. A house is advertised as having 1 420 square feet under roof.
arithmetic operations could be physically meaningful. What is the area of this house in square meters?(a) 115 m2
(a) A 1 B (b) B 2 A (c) A 2 B (d) A/B (e) AB (b) 132 m2 (c) 176 m2 (d) 222 m2 (e) none of these

3. Newton’s second law of motion (Chapter 4) says that the 7. At a horizontal distance of 45 m from a tree, the angle of
mass of an object times its acceleration is equal to the elevation to the top of the tree is 26°. How tall is the tree? (a)
net force on the object. Which of the following gives 22 m (b) 31 m (c) 45 m (d) 16 m (e) 11 m
the correct units for force? (a) kg ? m/s2 (b) kg ? m2/s2
(c) kg/m ? s2 (d) kg ? m2/s (e) none of these
8. If the length of a box is reduced to one third of its original
4. The Roman cubitus is an ancient unit of value and the width and height are doubled, by what factor has
measure equivalent to about 445 mm. Convert the volume changed? (a) 2/3 (b) 1(c) 4/3 (d) 3/2 (e) depends on
the 2.00-m height of a basketball forward to cubiti. relative proportion of length to height and width.
(a) 2.52 cubiti (b) 3.12 cubiti (c) 4.49 cubiti (d) 5.33
cubiti (e) none of these

B. CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS

1. Find the order of magnitude of your age in seconds. 5. Why is the metric system of units considered
superior to most other systems of units?
[Link] (a) Estimate the number of times your heart beats
in a month. (b) Estimate the number of human heart- (a) If an equation is dimensionally correct, does this
beats in an average lifetime. mean that the equation must be true? (b) If an equa-
tion is not dimensionally correct, does this mean that
3. Estimate the number of atoms in 1 cm3 of a the equation can’t be true? Explain your answers.
solid.(Note that the diameter of an atom is about 10210
m.)

4. Estimate the order of magnitude of the length,

C. PROBLEMS

1. The period of a simple pendulum, defined as the 2. QC Kinetic energy KE (Chapter 5) has dimensions
time necessary for one complete oscillation, is kg ? m2/s2. It can be written in terms of the momentum
measured in time units and is given by p (Chapter 6) and mass m as
, p2
T 5 2p KE 5
Åg 2m

where , is the length of the pendulum and g is the (a) Determine the proper units for momentum using
acceleration due to gravity, in units of length divided dimensional analysis. (b) Refer to Problem 5. Given
by time squared. Show that this equation is dimension- the units of force, write a simple equation relating a
ally consistent. (You might want to check the formula constant force F exerted on an object, an interval of
using your keys at the end of a string and a stopwatch.) time t during which the force is applied, and the result-
ing momentum of the object, p.
 9. A high fountain of

Newton’s law of universal gravitation is represented by
water is located at the
Mm center of a circular pool
F5G
r
2 as shown in Figure P1.43.
where F is the gravitational force, M and m are masses, Not wish-
and r is a length. Force has the SI units kg ? m/s2. What 55.0
ing to get his feet wet, a
are the SI units of the proportionality constant G?
student walks around the
pool and measures its cir-
4. How many significant figures are there in (a) 78.9
cumference to be 15.0 m.
6 0.2, (b) 3.788 3 109, (c) 2.46 3 1026, (d) 0.003 2 Figure P1.43
Next, the student stands
at the edge of the pool and uses a protractor to gauge
5. The radius of a circle is measured to be (10.5 +/- 0.2)m.
the angle of elevation at the bottom of the fountain to
Calculate (a) the area and (b) the circumference of the
be 55.0°. How high is the fountain?
circle, and give the uncertainty in each value.
10. The displacement of an object moving under
6. A car is traveling at a speed of 38.0 m/s on an uniform acceleration is some function of time and the
inter-state highway where the speed limit is 75.0 mi/h. acceleration. Suppose we write this displacement as s
Is the driver exceeding the speed limit? Justify your 5 kamtn, where k is a dimensionless constant. Show by
answer. dimen-sional analysis that this expression is satisfied
if m 5 1 and n 5 2. Can the analysis give the value of k?
7. The diameter of a sphere is measured
t o b e 5 . 3 6 i n . Find (a) the radius of the sphere in 11. S Sphere 1 has surface area A1 and volume V1, and
centimeters, (b) the surface area of the sphere in
sphere 2 has surface area A 2 and volume V2. If the
square centimeters, and (c) the volume of the
radius of sphere 2 is double the radius of sphere 1,
sphere in cubic centimeters.
what is the ratio of (a) the areas, A 2/A1 and (b) the vol-
umes, V2/V1?
8. BIO Treat a cell in a human as a sphere of radius
1.0 mm. (a) Determine the volume of a cell. (b) Esti-
mate the volume of your body. (c) Estimate the num-
ber of cells in your body. Assume a person has a shape
of a cylinder of radius r = 0.15 m and height h = 1.5 m.