Let be the center of mass acceleration downhill and the uphill static friction. Translation and rotation about the center of mass obeyThe rolling without slipping constraint is . For the coin's moment of inertia , this gives , soThe normal force is . Static friction can enforce rolling without slipping only if , givingThe static friction acts uphill to provide the torque; it is not automatically equal to , attaining that limiting value only at the threshold. For finite the result lies between and .
A circular orbit has constant . Both its initial radial velocity and radial acceleration must vanish, givingEquivalently, the initial tangential speed and angular velocity obeyThe initial polar angle is arbitrary, and the energy is fixed at . Either orientation is possible. These conditions give an exact circular orbit even if it is unstable; stability requires an additional positive second derivative of the effective potential.
Take upward velocity as positive, and let be the rearward rocket exhaust speed. During , the ejected parcel has mass and laboratory velocity to first order. The momentum change of the rocket and this parcel equals the gravitational impulse:Discarding the second-order product gives the vertical rocket equationWith and , integration for free flight starting from rest at givesThe logarithmic term is the ideal Tsiolkovsky rocket equation contribution; is the gravity loss. Immediate upward departure requires positive initial acceleration, orAt exact equality the initial acceleration is zero, but further burning reduces the weight and permits departure immediately thereafter. If departure is allowed to be delayed while fuel burns on the pad, the condition is instead at some time before burnout. With final rocket dry mass , any powered departure before burnout requires ; the free-flight formula then starts at the actual departure time with , giving .
For the specified data, the initial mass includes the payload. The rocket fuel fraction givesThe payload is already part of the final mass; it is not the entire rocket dry mass and must not be added a second time. Here , well below the stated rocket exhaust speed, so departure is immediate. The burnout speed isThis is the speed at burnout. Subsequent motion under the assumed uniform gravity has .
By symmetry, the resultant Coulomb force on each charge points along the line from the centroid to its vertex. Their accelerations and subsequent speeds are equal, so the centroid remains fixed and the equilateral triangle expands without rotating. Each charge follows a straight radial trajectory; the separation grows and the repulsive force decreases.
For example, if the instantaneous side is and the centroid-to-charge distance is , the two pair forces have a angle between them. Their resultant is , along the outward radius. This confirms that the symmetric shape persists.
Assuming release from rest, nonrelativistic motion and negligible radiation losses, energy conservation givesThe three velocity vectors sum to zero, consistent with momentum conservation. Their magnitudes approach the displayed value as the remaining electrostatic potential energy tends to zero.
Let , where , and let be the incident electron speed. Nonrelativistically, . Take the plate length along the beam as , their separation as , and their centre-to-screen distance as . A signed deflecting voltage gives the transverse acceleration , choosing its sign so that positive deflects the electron towards positive . The transit time is . The displacement inside the plates and in the subsequent field-free drift isThus the two screen edges requireThe transverse deflection at plate exit is at either extreme, smaller than the half-gap , so the beam clears the plates. The outgoing slope is ; no small-angle replacement for the trajectory was used. The kinetic energy remains far below , so the nonrelativistic approximation is adequate. If “30 cm behind” is instead measured from the downstream plate edge, replace by , giving approximately ; the intended thin-deflector estimate is about .
Choose and a signed tangential velocity , with counterclockwise viewed from . The magnetic part of the Lorentz force is , while the electric part is . The radial acceleration for a circular orbit is , regardless of the sign of . ConsequentlyOne valid signed-velocity convention therefore has , , . If is required to be a nonnegative speed, the two senses of rotation instead satisfywith the plus sign for counterclockwise motion. For positive , the electric force is inward, so it can supply circular motion in either direction; in one direction the magnetic force opposes it, while in the other it helps. A signed negative root must not be discarded as an unphysical speed; it denotes the opposite orbit direction.
Let be the drop in electric potential along the positive electric charge's path. By conservation of energy, , so the nonrelativistic exit speed is . Apply a uniform magnetic field perpendicular to the incident velocity and to the desired orbital plane. The magnetic Lorentz force is perpendicular to the velocity, does no work, and supplies the centripetal force:For example, and give initial deflection along for positive . Reversing the magnetic field reverses the bending. A uniform electric field alone would give constant acceleration and a parabolic path, not uniform circular motion. The displayed result assumes ; the exact relativistic momentum relation would give .
Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2015 Paper 2 Section B B6 Solution 2026-10-20
Take , and define and . Substitution of into the unforced equation gives . The roots determine whether the return is oscillatory.
For return after a displacement in this ideal model, critical damping, case (b), is the usual comfort choice: it removes repeated bouncing while avoiding the slow relaxation mode of strong overdamping. For release from rest it gives a monotone return with the fastest asymptotic decay available without oscillation. This criterion does not prove optimal comfort for every road profile or initial velocity; actual comfort also depends on acceleration, road forcing and suspension travel.
For the forced response, set and use . ThenThe general forced solution adds the appropriate homogeneous transient from (a), (b) or (c). Initial data were not specified, so its constants cannot be fixed. Positive damping removes this transient at long times. This solution uses the particular driving force in the supplied equation; it does not silently replace it by a different moving-support model.
Maximising is minimising its squared denominator . Differentiation givesA nonzero displacement resonance exists only if . Here , and thereforeThe low-frequency limit is , whereas at large . The parameters give damping ratio , consistent with an underdamped system and the existence of this amplitude maximum.
Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2016 Paper 2 Section A 5 Solution 2026-10-20
The effective mass follows from the curvature of the electronic band structure. Differentiating twice givesAt either first Brillouin zone boundary ,The boundary is a band maximum, with negative curvature and zero group velocity. In the semiclassical single-band description, an applied force changes ; the resulting acceleration is opposite the force near that maximum. This is a band-response coefficient, not a negative microscopic electron rest mass. A nearly filled band is often described more conveniently through positively charged electron holes near its maximum.
Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2016 Paper 2 Section B B6 Solution 2026-10-20
Put and . The characteristic roots are . For release from rest at displacement , the three regimes areunderdamping produces decaying oscillations; critical damping is the repeated-root boundary; overdamping has two real decay rates. The critical and overdamped curves from rest approach equilibrium without crossing it. All three initially have zero slope and negative acceleration. A sufficiently strong initial kick can cause a single crossing even without an oscillatory mode.
For the critical oscillator with initial velocity , the repeated-root solution isIts exponential is positive at finite time. Therefore the bracket has a positive-time zero precisely whenEquality gives a pure positive exponential and no finite-time crossing.
For the specified numerical oscillator, and , verifying overdamping. Its two roots are and in inverse seconds. The initial conditions givewith in seconds. The slow component has a negative coefficient; the fast positive component initially dominates.
The values for the requested plot areThe curve crosses near and then returns toward zero from below. The exact expression provides a check on the graphical estimate:
Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2016 Paper 2 Section C C10 Solution 2026-10-20
Take the electron's signed charge to be , where is the elementary-charge magnitude. Conventional electric current flows along , while the mean electron drift velocity is negative. With , the magnetic Lorentz force separates charge across the width until a transverse electric field balances it. The accumulated edge charge then sustains a Hall voltage without a transverse steady current. In a one-carrier model, the Hall coefficient identifies the sign and number density of carriers; real multiband materials require a more careful interpretation.
The acceleration term contains the effective mass describing the local band response. The relaxation term removes drift momentum on the mean momentum-relaxation time . The remaining two terms are the electric and magnetic Lorentz force on signed charge ; the magnetic force is perpendicular to velocity and does no instantaneous work. The relaxation-time approximation replaces individual scattering events by an averaged drift equation.
Let be the electron number density, distinct from the negative charge . In transverse open circuit and . The steady component equations givehenceConsequentlyThere is no sign ambiguity in this field-defined once axes and carrier charge are fixed.
A measured voltage ratio additionally needs probe polarities, which the geometric bar diagram does not label. To reproduce the positive ratio specified for electrons, define the longitudinal voltage drop and the transverse rise . ThenReversing either voltage's probes reverses the measured ratio, without changing the physical carrier density. With both voltages instead defined as drops along their positive axes, the algebraic ratio would have the opposite sign. The figure records the convention used here.
A monovalent copper model assigns roughly one delocalized conduction electron per atom to a broad, approximately free-electron-like band. Using is therefore a sensible first estimate for its transport scale. Monovalence alone does not prove that every band curvature or orbit has exactly the free mass: periodic-potential mixing, the nonspherical Fermi surface and direction-dependent scattering limit the model. The calculated is conditional on the stipulated effective-mass approximation.
Experimentally, reverse both current and magnetic field and extract the part of the transverse voltage odd in each. This rejects fixed contact offsets and much longitudinal pickup; use four-terminal longitudinal sensing, measure dimensions independently and check heating before assigning material parameters. These controls are implemented in a reusable Hall/conductivity teaching experiment, although that experiment uses germanium rather than the copper sample here.[ref]
The Hall Effect and Conductivity in Germanium by Rex Tayloe. pp.1–3, equipment, contact geometry, room-temperature conductivity and four current/field polarity combinations
A galilean transformation relates inertial frames in uniform relative translation. For the velocity of the primed origin,Absolute time and invariant acceleration make Newton's second law retain its form for the usual nonrelativistic interactions. For a particle of mass , and . Momentum and kinetic energy are frame dependent, although an isolated system's conservation laws hold in either inertial frame. Relative velocities and collision predictions are consistent between frames. A rotating or accelerating frame instead requires inertial-force terms. Maxwell equations with a fixed light speed are not Galilean invariant; Lorentz transformations replace these relations when relativistic effects matter.
Kepler's laws of planetary motion state that, in the relative two-body description, bound trajectories are ellipses with the attracting body at a focus, the radius vector sweeps equal areas in equal times, and the square of the period is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis for a fixed total mass. Their Newtonian derivation is especially informative. With relative coordinate and , the inverse-square acceleration is . Its zero torque conserves , fixing a plane and the areal velocity .
For , the orbit equation is as a function of polar angle. ThereforeBound negative-energy motion has and semilatus rectum . Dividing ellipse area by areal velocity givesFor a planet much lighter than its star, replace by . Zero-energy and positive-energy encounters are parabolic and hyperbolic rather than periodic ellipses. Perturbations from other bodies and departures from point-mass Newtonian gravity can precess or otherwise modify the orbit; Kepler's laws are a two-body approximation, not an exact rule for every observed planetary path.
A tidal force measures the difference of gravitational acceleration across an extended object. A freely falling reference frame removes a spatially uniform acceleration, but not its gradient. For a distant point mass at distance and direction from the reference centre, a small internal displacement givesThe tidal tensor has eigenvalues radially and in each transverse direction: radial stretching and transverse squeezing. Its trace vanishes in the source-free region, consistent with the gravitational Gauss law. An associated relative potential is .
The scale is across size , not the centre's absolute gravity . This distinction explains how a more distant massive object can exert a large force but a modest tide. Opposite-side stretching supports the elementary two-bulge picture; real ocean tides also involve rotation, basin geometry and fluid dynamics, so the static gradient alone does not predict coastal heights or timing. The same gradient stresses satellites and can disrupt a self-gravitating body when it competes with the body's own gravitational restoring acceleration.
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2013 Paper 1 Section C C10 Solution 2026-10-20
A fictitious force is a term required when writing Newton's second law in an accelerating frame; it comes from the coordinate choice rather than a new interaction. For axes rotating at constant about a fixed inertial origin,Apply this identity twice to position to get . Moving the last two terms to the right of gives the stated Coriolis and centrifugal forces. An accelerating origin or changing rotation rate would add further terms.
A slowly rotating fluid planet follows an equipotential of gravitational plus centrifugal potential. The centrifugal potential is , most negative at the equator. An outward equatorial shift raises gravitational potential and restores the balance, producing an oblate figure. Self-gravity also changes with the shape; no flattening coefficient follows from rotation alone without a density model.
Using local north and radial-up unit vectors, the centrifugal acceleration on a stationary mass isIt points away from the rotation axis: upward and equatorward, at angle to radial up in the northern hemisphere. Its vertical fraction of gravitational force isusing a day for this approximate number. The resultant effective weight tilts equatorward relative to radial down. A plumb-defined local vertical already follows effective gravity; the component calculation uses the spherical radial vertical. A supported stationary mass of course has zero net acceleration.
For the Coriolis deflection of vertical launch and drop, retain only first order in , use effective constant , and neglect horizontal velocities in the Coriolis term as instructed. With east positive, vertical velocity gives and no northward acceleration. For launch, and the flight time is . Integrating with zero initial horizontal velocity givesThe landing is westward. The westward velocity accumulated on ascent is only recovered on descent, so the two displacement contributions do not cancel.
For release from rest at , , , and . ThusThe drop lands eastward with one quarter the launch-return displacement magnitude. North–south corrections from horizontal Coriolis coupling are beyond the retained approximation.
Original centrifugal geometry and opposite east–west deflections for launch-return and drop trajectories
. Details. Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2015 Paper 1 Section C 13 Solution 2026-10-20
For a Newtonian fluid with velocity , is the component of traction on a plane whose normal points along . The opposite face has the opposite traction. The coefficient is dynamic viscosity, with units . Faster layers transfer positive momentum toward slower neighbours; the internal shear stress resists relative sliding.
Shear-traction convention, Couette-Poiseuille profiles, and oscillatory viscous penetration
. Details. Take a thin fluid element with horizontal area and thickness . The difference between its upper and lower viscous tractions is . The pressure gradient supplies . Incompressibility is satisfied because has no dependence, and the convective acceleration vanishes: . Equating net force to mass times acceleration therefore gives the relevant component of the Navier-Stokes equation:For steady flow, integrate twice and impose the no-slip boundary condition at each plate, and . The Couette-Poiseuille flow profile isThe linear term is Couette flow and the parabolic term is plane Poiseuille flow. A negative drives flow in . Integrating the profile across the gap gives the volumetric flow per unit width,It has units ; multiplying by the plate width gives the actual volume per time.
With zero pressure gradient, substituting gives . Select the root that decays into fluid occupying :The other sign applies to decay in the opposite half-space. With a real wall velocity amplitude , the established periodic solution of Stokes' second problem isThe oscillation's amplitude decays exponentially and its phase lags with distance from the plate. This is diffusion of tangential momentum, not a freely propagating undamped elastic wave. Initial transients must have decayed before this purely periodic expression applies.
The fluid-displacement amplitude and the wall-displacement amplitude have the same ratio as their velocity amplitudes, since both are divided by the common . Thus for the specified amplitudes,Using the standard approximate water density , explicitly an approximation rather than another value printed on the paper, gives and from either face of a sufficiently large plate. The viscous penetration depth varies as if a more precise water density is used. The ideal parallel-flow solution ignores finite plate edges and tank walls.
A Newtonian fluid exerts viscous shear stress proportional to the rate of strain. For an incompressible fluid of constant dynamic viscosity ,The local momentum balance is the Navier-Stokes equation:The left side is density times material acceleration. A steady velocity field can still have convective acceleration when a moving parcel changes speed or direction; setting does not eliminate it.
The Reynolds number compares inertia with viscous effects. At low Reynolds number, the fluid's own inertia can often be neglected, giving Stokes flow. This does not say that every immersed body has zero acceleration: its mass and the net pressure, viscous and body forces still enter its own equation of motion.
For a small rigid sphere moving through a slowly varying viscous background, Stokes drag is . In still fluid, a simple settling model includes weight, buoyancy and drag:Ignoring fluid added mass and unsteady history forces, this gives relaxation time and terminal velocityAt the terminal velocity the net force and acceleration vanish, while viscous drag and gravity remain individually nonzero. The dissipated power is supplied by the loss of gravitational potential energy relative to buoyant support. The creeping-flow and quasisteady-drag assumptions must be checked before applying this expression at large speed or immediately after a rapid start.
For two bodies interacting through a potential energy that depends only on their separation, introduce the centre of mass coordinate and the two-particle relative coordinate:Their kinetic energy separates exactly:The centre of mass moves uniformly if there is no external force, while the internal two-body problem reduces to one effective particle of reduced mass :The original trajectories follow from and .
For Newtonian gravity, , so the relative acceleration is . Conserved relative angular momentum and energy then give the usual conic sections. For a bound orbit of relative semimajor axis ,The two bodies share this orbital period and orbit their common centre of mass with semimajor axes in inverse proportion to their masses. If , then , recovering the fixed-heavy-centre approximation. Using as the internal inertial mass would confuse centre-of-mass translation with relative motion.
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2017 Paper 1 Section A A5 Solution 2026-10-18
Cold air is denser than room air at approximately the same pressure. The ideal gas law gives a fractional mass density contrast of order . The initial outflow is therefore a gravity current driven by reduced gravityFor an illustrative refrigerator height , room temperature and temperature difference , this gives . Balancing the released potential energy with kinetic energy gives . The buoyancy exchange time of a cold-air enclosure is consequentlyUsing constant acceleration over height gives , consistent at this level. Warm air enters as cold air leaves, so unrestricted vacuum free fall is not the right acceleration model. No dimensions or temperatures are specified in the source, so an order-of-magnitude estimate with explicit representative values is the appropriate result; shelves and mixing can delay complete replacement.
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2017 Paper 1 Section C C10 Solution 2026-10-18
Changing basis and acceleration. Attach orthonormal unit vectors to the rotating frame, with a common origin fixed in the inertial frame. An infinitesimal rotation changes a vector fixed in those axes by : its tip moves tangentially to the circle about the rotation axis. More generally, write . Differentiating the components and the rotating basis separately proves the rotating-frame derivative formula,
Original geometric construction of the tangential change of a vector during a small positive rotation; the change is dtheta crossed with A
. Details. Apply the formula first to position: , where . Apply it again to both terms. For constant ,One cross term comes from differentiating in the inertial frame and another from differentiating in . The displayed source formula implicitly requires constant angular velocity and an unaccelerated common origin. For changing rotation rate there is also ; an accelerating origin supplies its own translational acceleration. Moving the rotation terms to the force side gives the apparent Coriolis force and centrifugal force with negative signs.
Southward motion on Earth. Use local east, north and up axes, with latitude positive northward. Then and . The Coriolis acceleration in local Earth coordinates givesIt is westward in the northern hemisphere, eastward in the southern hemisphere and zero for exactly southward motion at the equator. There is no vertical Coriolis component for this particular velocity.
Correct steering. On the desired meridional track, drag has no eastward component because it is antiparallel to the velocity. If the thrust makes signed angle east of south, its eastward component is . The cross-track force balance is thereforesoThe argument must have magnitude at most one for this simple thrust-only correction to be feasible. The signed angle changes sign at the equator: correction is east of south in the north and west of south in the south. Thus the phrase “east of south” cannot describe a positive correction throughout the entire flight.
Wrong-sign correction and the miss distance. A literally constant velocity vector cannot develop a cross-track displacement. The physically useful interpretation of the last task is constant speed, with an erroneous lateral steering correction. In the usual leading-track model, thrust and drag balance along the actual motion, and the applied transverse correction has the correct magnitude but the wrong sign. It therefore reinforces rather than cancels the Coriolis force. Starting at the equator, use the unperturbed southward track , and let be the eastward departure from that track. To first order in the departure,There is a factor two relative to uncompensated Coriolis deflection because the wrong correction adds an equal lateral force. Integration gives the wrong-sign Coriolis steering error,For southern angular distance , and , the nominal flight time after the equator isTaking givesThe small-latitude approximation gives and , or , confirming the scale and direction.
This is an estimate under an explicit steering model, not an exact trajectory forced by the wording. For example, retaining spherical transport of the local axes while still linearizing in the cross-track motion gives, with , . Consequently and the longitude departure is . The distance along the destination parallel is then . Corrections from the changed track and a more detailed control law are not fixed by the problem. If “keeps the velocity constant” instead means the full vector, the pilot would need an additional compensating force and there would be no miss; if thrust is kept at a specified geographical bearing despite drift, its along-track component and lateral drag must also be modelled.




