Chapter 1, problem 7 (sig figs: 2; technically 1 by problem statement): Hydraulic engineers in the United States often use,

as a unit of volume of water, the acre-foot, defined as the volume of water that will cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1 foot. A
severe thunderstorm dumped 2.0 inches in 30 minutes on a town of area 26 km
2
. What volume of water, in acre-feet, fell on the
town? You will need to convert acre to km
2
; we have
2
1 247.11 km acr = (thanks, Google!),

2 2
2
247.11 1 ft
26 km 2 1070. .0 in 26 km 2.0 in
1 12 in
81
acr
V A
km
acr ft
| || |
= = = =
| |
\ \ .

.
(1.1)

Technically,
2
26 km 2.0 in is the correct volume, just in weird units, so its worth it to box it.

Additional problem: Discuss the ampere-hour, in the same spirit, and talk about why it means total charge, and has nothing
to do with current.

Chapter 1, problem 12 (sig figs: 2): the fastest growing plant on record is the hesperoyucca whipplei that grew 3.7 m in 14
days. What was its growth rate in micro meters per millisecond?

6
3
10 3.7 m
14 days 86400
0.00306 3.0
10
6
m
m
ms
day
m m
s
y
t m s

+
=
A
= =
A
(1.2)

Fun fact: this problem is exactly identical to finding the vertical average velocity of a point-projectile. That universality is one
of the beauties of physics.

Important: It is important to distinguish three parts of any physics problem (1) the setting up of the equations and putting things
in the right place, (2) the algebra, and sometimes (3) the calculator work (if you choose to plug in numbers). Surprisingly, (1) is
usually the harder part! In fact, the steps are in order of descending difficulty!

Chapter 1, problem 14 (sig figs: 3): a lecture period (50min) is close to 1 microcentury. a.) How long is a microcentury in
minutes?

6 4
365.25 days 24 60 min
10 100 yr 10 52.6 min yr Ce
yr day

= = = (1.3)

b) Use the formula below to find the percentage difference from the approximation.

52.
4.9
6 50
% 100% 100
5 .
4% %
2 6
Ac App
Ac

A = = = (1.4)

Remembering the pesky percent difference formula: In the numerator, you can write either Ac App or write App Ac ,
which is just the negative of the abovementioned. But, you must always divide by the Accepted, not the approximation!
Can anyone tell me why this is? This is because an accepted value will never be 0, otherwise it wont be of interest. Things are
always theoretically 0. You actually can never measure something that is 0, by definition, becausetheres literally nothing
(zero!) to measure!

Chapter 1, problem 14 (sig figs: n/a): Five clocks are being tested in a laboratory. Exactly at noon, as determined by WWV
timesignal, on successive days of a week. The clocks read as in the following table. Rank the five clocks according to their
relative value as good timekeepers, best to worst. Justify your answers.

Clock: Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat.
A 12:36:40 12:36:56 12:37:12 12:37:27 12:37:44 12:37:59 12:38:14
B 11:59:59 12:00:02 11:59:57 12:00:07 12:00:02 11:59:56 12:00:03
C 15:50:45 15:51:43 15:52:41 15:53:39 15:54:37 15:55:35 15:56:33
D 12:03:59 12:02:52 12:01:45 12:00:38 11:59:31 11:58:24 11:57:17
E 12:03:59 12:02:49 12:01:54 12:01:52 12:01:32 12:01:22 12:01:12

Modification of problem statement: This would require Microsoft EXCEL to do the most painlessly.

None of the clocks advance by exactly 24 h in a 24-h period but this is not the most important criterion for judging their quality
for measuring time intervals. What is important is that the clock advance by the same amount in each 24-h period. The clock
reading can then easily be adjusted to give the correct interval. If the clock reading jumps around from one 24-h period to
another, it cannot be corrected since it would impossible to tell what the correction should be. The following gives the
corrections (in seconds) that must be applied to the reading on each clock for each 24-h period. The entries were determined by
subtracting the clock reading at the end of the interval from the clock reading at the beginning.

CLOCK Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri.
-Mon. -Tues. -Wed. -Thurs. -Fri. -Sat.
A 16 16 15 17 15 15
B 3 +5 10 +5 +6 7
C 58 58 58 58 58 58
D +67 +67 +67 +67 +67 +67
E +70 +55 +2 +20 +10 +10

Clocks C and D are both good timekeepers in the sense that each is consistent in its daily drift (relative to WWF time); thus, C
and D are easily made perfect with simple and predictable corrections. The correction for clock C is less than the correction
for clock D, so we judge clock C to be the best and clock D to be the next best. The correction that must be applied to clock A is
in the range from 15 s to 17s. For clock B it is the range from -5 s to +10 s, for clock E it is in the range from -70 s to -2 s. After
C and D, A has the smallest range of correction, B has the next smallest range, and E has the greatest range. From best to worst,
the ranking of the clocks is C, D, A, B, E.

Chapter 1, problem 19 (sig figs: 3): Suppose that, while lying on a beach near the equator watching the Sun set over a calm
ocean, you start a stopwatch just as the top of the Sun disappears. You then stand, elevating your eyes by a height h = 1.70 m,
and stop the watch when the top of the Sun again disappears. If the elapsed time is t = 11.1 s, what is the radius 'r' of the Earth?
TYPO IN BOOK: the H is supposed to be lower-case. This problem teaches us about drawing schematics, a very important skill
in physics.

When the Sun first disappears while lying down, your line
of sight to the top of the Sun is tangent to the Earths
surface at point A shown in the figure. As you stand,
elevating your eyes by a height h, the line of sight to the
Sun is tangent to the Earths surface at point B. In the
schematic, label tan d r u = .
Compute r using the pythagorean formula,

solve for r
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
( ) 2 tan tan 2 0 d r r h r rh h r r r rh h u u + = + = + + = + = (1.5)

Taylor expansion: a skill you will need to learn is series-expansion. The theory behind it involves derivatives, but the upshot is
that various functions are equal to simpler (often linear forms). To see this, divide (1.5) through by r , and NOTE that the
quantity h/r is a pure number, without dimensions
1
!

( ) 2
2
2 2 2
tan
tan 2 tan 2 0 0 2 2 cot
h h h h
r r r
r h
u
u u u ~ = = = (1.6)

How do we compute u ? We use what we know about the length of a day,

(360 )(11.1 s)
0.04625 ;
360 24 h (24 h)(60 min/h)(60 s/min)
t u
u

= = =

(1.7)

Now were home free,

2 6
2(1.7)cot (0.04625 ) 5.2 10 m r = = (1.8)


1
Only quantities without dimension may be said to be small, unlike what the book says.