Duke Physics Challenges

The following Physics Challenges are for Duke undergraduates

and others to enjoy. The motivation for these problems comes
from Mark Twain's famous quip that "I have never let my
schooling interfere with my education." and similarly I think
physics is too much fun to restrict just to classrooms, labs, and
homework assignments.

If you would like to propose a solution to a Challenge, talk about

one of the Challenges, or get a hint, please send me e-mail at
hsg@phy.duke.edu or drop by my office in the Physics building,
Room097. Please also forward to me any neat problems that you
find or invent that would be fun to present as a challenge.

References and links to other collections of physics problems and

challenges can be found here.

Professor Henry Greenside

Physics 097 919-660-2548

Challenge1 Heating of Two Identical Balls

You are given two identical steel balls of radius 5cm. One ball is
resting on a table, the other ball is hanging from a string. Both
balls are heated (e.g., with a blow torch) until their radii have
increased to the same value of 5.01cm. Which ball absorbed
more heat and why?

Challenge2 Let Go or Hang On?

A painter is high up on a ladder, painting a house, when

unfortunately the ladder starts to fall over from the vertical.
Determine which is the less harmful action for the painter: to let
go of the ladder right away and fall to the ground, or to hang on
to the ladder all the way to the ground.

Challenge3 How to knock a bottle over with a sandbag and

drinking straw.

A heavy 300kg sandbag one meter tall is hung from a

playground swing with a rope 3meters long so that the bottom of
the sandbag just clears the ground. A bottle is then placed on the
ground a meter away from the sandbag as shown.

Explain how to to knock the bottle over with the sandbag if you
are given a paper drinking straw but are not allowed to touch
anything (sandbag, rope, bottle, swing) with your body or with
the straw.

Challenge4 Running away from killer bees.

While walking through an open field on a windy day, you

accidentally step on a nest of killer bees. In which direction
should you run to save your life? Will you be able to run fast
enough to escape?

For this Challenge, assume that the wind is blowing from the east
at 4.5meters/sec (10miles/hour) and use the fact that bees have
an experimentally measured maximum speed of about
8meters/sec (18miles/hour). The fastest runners can attain
10meters/sec (23miles/hour), most people much less than that.
Challenge5 Equilibration of Two Birthday Balloons

Consider two identical spherical birthday balloons, one of which

is inflated to 2/3its maximum diameter and the other inflated to
1/3its maximum diameter. What happens when the openings of
the two balloons are connected to each other by a straw so that
air can flow back and forth between the two balloons?

Note: This experiment is simple enough that you should try it

before making your mind up about what the "obvious" answer
is.

Challenge6 Temperature of a kilogram of ice and a

kilogram of boiling water?

A kilogram of ice at 0oC and a kilogram (liter) of boiling water at

100oC are mixed together in a thermally insulated tank. What is
the temperature of the water in the tank after the contents have
reached equilibrium?

Challenge7 Distinguishing two nearly identical spheres

You are given two spheres that are identical in size, weight,
appearance, and touch but one sphere is hollow while the other
is solid. (As an example, the solid sphere could be made out of a
light wood and the hollow sphere made out of a denser wood,
then both spheres carefully painted to look and feel the same.)
Using only simple items that you might find at home (no fancy
equipment, no drills, no X-ray machines), determine which
sphere is hollow.

Challenge8 Why don't clouds fall like a rock to the ground?

As someone living near the beginning of the 21stcentury, can

you explain a problem that badly perplexed the ancient Greeks
and Romans (and also people throughout the medieval ages):
how come clouds don't come crashing down to the ground? After
all, clouds are made of water droplets and ice crystals which are
about 800times more dense than air, comparable in density to
rocks. So why don't clouds fall like a rock to the ground? To give
this problem focus, propose some specific experiments that you
could carry out that would help you to discover the answer.

Challenge9 A bird flying between colliding trains

Two trains each traveling at 30km/hour are approaching each

other on the same straight railroad track. When the trains are
30km apart, a bird resting at the front of one train takes off and
flies at a constant speed of 50km/hour to the other train. As soon
as it reaches the other train, it instantly turns around and flies
back to the original train, and keeps repeating this back and forth
at the same constant speed until the trains collide. How far will
the bird have flown at the time of the collision?

Challenge10 Which switch controls the desk lamp?

A light bulb in a desk lamp is turned on and off by exactly one of

three simple switches which are located in a remote room such
that one can not see the desk lamp from the location of the three
switches. Explain how to determine which switch controls the
desk lamp if you are allowed to flip the switches any number of
times but are allowed to visit the room with the desk lamp only
once. You can assume that the on and off positions of each switch
are correctly labeled.

Challenge11 Spherical Thinking

Assuming that the earth is a sphere, where on the earth's surface

is it possible for a person to walk one kilometer south, one
kilometer east, and one kilometer north and end up in the exact
same place?

A hint: there is more than one such place.

Challenge12 Atomic thickness of your signature

When you write your name on paper using a pencil, you create a
thin layer of graphite. Invent and carry out an elementary
experiment to estimate how many atoms thick is your signature.

Note: The graphite in a pencil is a pure form of carbon consisting

of many planar sheets of carbon atoms stacked one above the
other. The carbon atoms have strong bonds within a planar sheet
and much weaker bonds between the sheets and so one sheet can
slide rather easily with respect to an adjacent sheet, which
explains why graphite is so useful as pencil lead. The spacing
between sheets has been measured by X-ray crystallography to
be 0.34nanometers from which you can then determine from
your experiment how many atomic sheets thick is your signature.

Challenge 13 Leaning Tower of Pizza

Assume that you have a large supply of identical strong square

pizza boxes of dimension one inch deep by 18inches wide. By
stacking these pizza boxes on a sturdy table, one on top of the
other, how far out into space can you extend this stack beyond
the edge of the table?

Challenge14 Wrongly rotating wagon wheels of a

stagecoach

In watching a cowboy movie, you may have noticed that the

wagon wheels of a stagecoach sometimes rotate the wrong way:
the stagecoach may be moving left to right across the movie
screen while the spokes of the wheel rotate backwards
(counterclockwise). If a movie displays 24frames per second, if
the wagon wheels are 5feet tall and have eight spokes each, and
if the horses pull the stagecoach left to right at 20miles/hour
(32km/hour), will the wagon spokes be rotating forward or
backwards compared to the direction of the stagecoach? What
will the movie audience perceive as the angular velocity of the
wheels?

Challenge15 Galactic Pinball

An indestructible sphere of mass 100kg is launched by rocket

into space. What will its speed be after a sufficiently long time?

Note: It may be useful for you to know that the mass of a star is of
order 1030kg and the relative speed of stars in a galaxy is of
order 10km/sec.

Challenge 16 A Universal Reflector

Consider three identical square planar mirrors that are glued

together to form three adjacent sides of a cube meeting at a
corner, with the mirrored sides all facing towards each other.
Show that these mirrors act as a universal reflector that sends
light back to its source: any light beam entering this arrangement
of mirrors will leave parallel and opposite to its original
direction.

If you look into such a corner reflector, what kind of image will
you see of your face?

Note: Such corner reflectors were left on the surface of the moon
by Apollo astronauts and were used in ranging experiments, in
which laser beams from an observatory on Earth were bounced
off the surface of the Moon and returned to the observatory, with
the time of transit being measured. This enabled the distance
from the Earth to the Moon to be measured with high accuracy
which has been useful in testing the theory of general relativity
and also for investigating the geology and origin of the Moon.

Challenge17 Candy-Bar Powered Marathon Runner

A candy bar provides about 300calories of energy. By thinking

about the physics of running, estimate how many candy bars a
person would have to eat to obtain enough energy to run a
Boston Marathon of 26miles and 385yards (42.2kilometers), if
that person weighs 65kg (143lb) and is 1.7 meters tall (5 feet 7
inches).

Note 1: A food calorie is a so-called "large calorie", the amount of

energy needed to raise one kilogram of water one degree Celsius
at atmospheric pressure, and is equal to about 4.2 kilojoules.

Note 2: Estimating orders of magnitudes of phenomena is a fun

and important skill and often provides surprisingly useful
insights into some problems. A famous historical example was
the order-of-magnitude estimate by Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919) of
the lifetime of the sun if it obtained its heat from chemical means
(e.g., burning coal). His estimated lifetime was orders of
magnitude shorter than known geological and evolutionary times
and so strongly suggested that the sun obtained its energy by
some unknown non-chemical mechanism, which we now know
to be nuclear fusion.

Note 3: Physics 103b at Caltech is devoted to the art of estimating

orders of magnitude. Its web page has problems with solutions
that are lots of fun.

Challenge18 Volume of a Holey Cube

Consider a solid silver cube whose side has length L=4cm. If
three holes of diameter D=3cm are drilled completely through,
and perpendicular to, the centers of all the faces of the cube,
what is the volumeV of the remaining metal in the cube?

Note: This is not strictly a physics problem but does require the
kind of practical mathematical knowledge that an undergraduate
science student should have.

Challenge 19 Resistance is Futile

Consider an electrical circuit consisting of a cube of 12 identical

resistors such that each edge of the cube is a 1ohm resistor, and
each group of three resistors meeting at a vertex are soldered
together. Calculate the resistances between nearest neighbor,
second-nearest neighbor, and third-nearest neighbor pairs of
vertices.

Challenge 20 Broken Symmetry Game

Consider a circular table (e.g., a bridge table) and a large supply

of identical circular disks that are much smaller than the table
(e.g., checker pieces). Now consider the following simple game:
each of two players take turns choosing a disk and putting it
down on the surface of the table so that the disk lies flat and no
disk rests on top of another disk.

If the first person who is unable to put a disk down loses

(because of lack of space), should you go first or second to win
this game?

Challenge 21 Deducing the size of the Earth from a lovely

sunset

You are enjoying a Caribbean vacation and happen to have a

stopwatch with you at the beach. As you watch the sun set over
the ocean, you carry out the following eccentric sequence of
events: (1), you lie down on your stomach in the sand and wait
until the top of the sun just disappears below the horizon; (2),
you then quickly stand up and simultaneously start your
stopwatch. By standing up, a bit of the sun is now visible again
and (3), you wait until the top of the sun again dips below the
horizon, at which point you stop the stopwatch. Knowing this
elapsed time, your height, and that a day lasts 24hours, explain
how you can deduce the radius of the Earth. (And next time you
find yourself watching a sunset at the beach, give this a try and
compare your answer with the known value of 6400km.)

Challenge 22 Can you trust your heart?

According to Daniel Boorstein in his interesting book "The

Discoverers" (Random House, 1983), Galileo was nineteen years
old in1583 when he made the apparent discovery that the
periodT of a pendulum seemed to be independent of the
amplitudeA of its swing (measured in radians, with zero radians
corresponding to the pendulum being directly underneath its
support). He was supposedly attending prayers in the baptistery
of the Cathedral of Pisa and was distracted by the swinging of an
altar lamp, whose period did not seem to change as its amplitude
slowly diminished.

In fact, as you hopefully know, the period of a pendulum does

depend on the amplitude of the swing, becoming longer as the
amplitude becomes larger. So here is an interesting historical
question: could Galileo have discovered this while in the
baptistery? (He did discover this later on in his life.) The only
clock he would have had available in the baptistery would have
been his heartbeat. Since this is an unreliable clock (one's
heartbeat can speed up or slow down), this raises an interesting
physics question: given an unreliable clock and some knowledge
of what makes it unreliable, how accurately can one measure a
time interval or difference in time intervals?

Try to do some history of science and determine whether Galileo

could have detected the nonlinear dependence of period on
amplitude by just using his heartbeat as a clock. Let's guess that
the lengthL of the lamp's support was L=10meters and that the
amplitude of motion was moderate, say A=20degrees from the
vertical.

1. Using the approximate formula "T = 2 Pi Sqrt[L/g] ( 1 + (1/16)

A2 + ...)" for the period T of a pendulum of amplitude A
measured in radians (with L its length and g=10 meter2/sec
the acceleration of gravity), estimate in seconds the
difference in period between an amplitude of 20 degrees and
zero degrees. Galileo would have had to detect this small
difference in time to realize that the period depended on
amplitude.

Note: This formula is derived in many textbooks and is

surprisingly accurate, even for amplitudes as large as 45
degrees (see "Mechanics, 3rd Ed." by L. D. Landau and E. M.
Lifshitz (Pergamon Press,1976), Section11.)

2. Assume that Galileo's heart beat on average 60beats per

minute but could beat as fast as 70beats per minute or as
slow as 50 beats a minute at any given time. By counting
heart beats, could Galileo have detected the small difference
 in period between a nearly vertical lamp (A=0) and a
swinging lamp with A=20degrees?

Challenge 23 North, South, East, or West, and When and

Where?

The above picture shows the Sun over eleven successive hours as
photographed from a certain fixed location. What time was it
when the Sun reached its minimum height above the horizon? In
what compass direction (north, south, east, or west) was the
camera facing when the Sun reached its minimum height? Is the
Sun moving right to left or left or right? Was it spring, summer,
fall or winter when this picture was taken? And where on the
surface of the Earth could this picture have been taken?

Challenge 24 How sensitive is the human eye?

Some books say that the human eye is so sensitive that it can
perceive the light of a match two miles (3.2km) away on a dark
night. Other books say that the human eye is so sensitive that it
can detect as few as five photons (quantized light particles). By
using an appropriate order of magnitude estimate, determine
whether these two statements are consistent with each other.

Challenge25 Law of reflection for a moving mirror.

An elementary fact that people learn about mirrors is the law of

reflection, that the angle of incidence of a light beam striking the
mirror (as measured with respect to a normal) equals the angle
of reflection.

Does this law also hold for a mirror that is moving? Consider a
square mirror that is moving at speedv in a direction
perpendicular to the mirror. (You can think of the mirror as
starting in the xy-plane and moving in the positive zdirection of
a Cartesian coordinate system.) As the mirror approaches a
certain observation point, a friend shines a laser beam of
frequency w at the mirror so that the beam makes an angle A
with the normal to the mirror. (You can think of the beam as
lying in the yz-plane.)

What angle and frequency will you measure for the reflected
light beam? Does the law of reflection still hold?

Do your conclusions change if the mirror moves parallel, rather

than perpendicular, to its plane (say in the ydirection if it starts
in the xy-plane)?

Note: The large mirror of the Hubble space telescope is an

example of a mirror in motion as it orbits the earth. From your
analysis, do you think the users of the Hubble have to take into
account the motion of the mirror when measuring properties of
its images?

Challenge26 First-order single-variable dynamics are

asymptotically boring

Consider some quantity y(t) that varies with timet, e.g., the
pressure, temperature, mass, voltage, or chemical concentration
of some system. Show that if this quantity evolves according to a
first-order ordinary differential equation of the form dy/dt=f(y)
with f(y) some differentiable function, then the asymptotic
(nontransient) dynamics of y(t) are boring: y(t) either diverges to
infinity (which is unphysical) or y(t) approaches a constant time-
independent behavior. In particular, no matter how complicated
the function f(y), the asymptotic behavior can never be
oscillatory.

Note1: In thinking about this problem, try to use a qualitative

approach based on the possible signs (negative, zero, or positive)
of the function f(y) rather than on any detailed properties of this
function.

Note2: This elementary and neat result suggests that one needs
at least two coupled variables or a higher-order time derivative
to get nontransient non-constant behavior, e.g., sustained
oscillations. A famous and rather difficult theorem from the turn
of the century, the Poincare-Bendixson theorem, generalizes your
single-variable analysis to two coupled first-order equations with
arbitrary smooth functions of two variables: the only
nontransient bounded behavior is either constant or periodic.
For three or more coupled first-order equations, new kinds of
nontransient dynamics can occur such as quasiperiodic behavior
(multiple oscillations present with frequencies whose ratios are
irrational numbers) or chaos which is nontransient bounded
dynamics that is neither periodic nor quasiperiodic.

Challenge27 Ultimately wrong theory of everything

A scientist Dr.X of CountryY excitedly holds a news conference

and says: "I have finally succeeded in finding the ultimate
complete theory of the universe which will allow the detailed
explanation and prediction of all phenomena from elementary
particles to condensed matter to galactic structure to black holes
and beyond. It consists of the following 23coupled partial
differential equations involving space and time derivatives." At
this point Dr.X holds up a 2meter by 4meter panel covered with
the exceedingly complex 23equations so that the world
television audience can be properly intimidated.
Why is this claim obviously wrong?

Challenge28 Vector or not a vector?

Consider a smooth vector function

F = ( Fx(x,y,z), Fy(x,y,z), Fz(x,y,z))

with three components. If x, y, andz denote partial
differentiation with respect to x, y, andz respectively, is the
triplet
( xFx, yFy, zFz )
a vector quantity?

Challenge29 Fission of charged rain drops

Small water drops can sometimes merge into a single bigger drop
(one sees this when rain falls on the windshield of a car).
Fortunately, this mechanism seems to have some upper limit else
we might get hit by rain drops a meter or more in size which
would be most painful (and probably fatal for small creatures).
This raises an interesting physics question: what determines the
size of rain drops in a storm?

Using an elementary knowledge of electrostatics, you can

determine whether electric charge might play a role in
determining the characteristic size of a rain drop. (That electrical
charges might play a role is suggested by the occurrence of
lightning in many storms.) Consider a spherical water drop of
radiusR carrying an electrical chargeQ that is uniformly
distributed over the surface of the drop. If this drop splits into
two smaller spherical drops of equal size with each drop having
charge Q/2 uniformly distributed over their surfaces, show that
electrostatics favors such a splitting by calculating the decrease
in electrostatic energy caused by fission.

The total surface area of the two equal smaller drops turns out to
be larger than the surface area of the original drop and so,
because of surface tension which holds a drop together, it costs
energy to split the original drop. IfS denotes the surface tension
(which has units of energy per unit area or Newton/meter), how
much energy is needed to split a drop into two equal smaller
drops?

Now put your two observations together. For a water rain drop of
size R=1mm and approximate surface tension of
S=0.07Newton/meter at room temperature, how many
electronsN would have to be deposited on the drop in order for
the electrostatic energy gained by fission to offset the energy lost
by creating more surface area? Do you think this would be a
reasonable amount of charge to accumulate by friction as one
rain drop bumps against another in a rain storm? Is the resulting
electric field at the surface of the drop large in the sense of being
close to the value 30,000volts/meter at which air breaks down?

Note: Find a copy of the Guiness Book of World Records and look
up the weight of the heaviest hailstone ever found (it was heavy
enough to easily kill an elephant!). Evidently powerful
convection currents in storms can suspend large weights so that
the distribution of rain drop sizes is more likely determined by
stability arguments of the above sort rather than by the largest
mass that can be supported in a storm.

Challenge30 Time for a vertical pencil to fall over

Estimate the time for a motionless vertical pencil to fall over (1),
because of quantum mechanics and (2), because of thermal
fluctuations.

Challenge31 Length of a helical string

Consider a cylindrical rod of length 12cm and circumference

4cm. Starting at one end of the rod and ending up at the other
end, a string is wound evenly and exactly four times around the
cylinder. What is the length of the string?

Note: With an appropriate insight, only elementary high school

mathematics is needed to solve this (no calculus, no differential
geometry).

Challenge32 Time for a marble to roll down and up a

kitchen bowl.

Consider a hemispherical kitchen bowl of radius R. If a marble is

released with zero velocity at one edge of the bowl (adistance
Rabove the kitchen table), how long will it take for the marble to
roll down and then up to the opposite side of the bowl? For
simplicity, assume that the marble rolls without slipping.

Challenge33Critical angle of rolling for two adjacent

cylinders on a tilted board.

Consider two cylinders of equal radius and uniform mass density

that are placed on a board so that they are touching each other
and such that their axes are parallel to the bottom of the board:

Now for a single cylinder, as soon as the board is tilted up from

the horizontal, the cylinder will start to roll. But for two
cylinders, the tendency for the bottom cylinder to roll is opposed
by a friction force arising from the contact with the upper
cylinder. Calculate the critical angleA above the horizontal at
which the two cylinders will start to roll down the incline.

Note1: Assume that the complex friction forces can be modeled

by the usual simplified rules given in an introductory physics
course. If fandN denote the friction and normal forces
respectively at a contact and if denotes the coefficient of
friction, then

0<=f<=N,

for bodies not in relative motion and

f=N,

for bodies in relative motion. For this simple model, sliding at a

contact begins whenf first attains its maximum value of N. For
simplicity, you can also assume that the friction forces of the
cylinders with the board and with each other are all described by
the same friction coefficient.

Note2: This kind of problem arises when trying to understand

the dynamics of granular flow, e.g., how grain flows down a pipe
in a silo or sand in an hourglass, or why sand forms a conical
heap with a characteristic angle of repose. Over the last ten
years, granular flow has become a hot topic in the physics
community and many extraordinary discoveries have been made
as researchers started carrying out careful experiments.

Note3: As a harder challenge, see if you can work out the critical
angle for rolling if a third cylinder is stacked on top of the first
two cylinders.

Challenge34 Crazy series circuit

Consider the following series circuit:

consisting of two 15watt light bulbs L1andL2 and two knife

switches K1andK2 connected to black boxes that themselves are
wired in series by simple single-strand copper wires. The entire
circuit is then connected to an ACsource as shown, e.g., the usual
120-volt, 60-cycle American voltage source.

Explain how to connect at most a few passive electrical

components (e.g., capacitors, diodes, inductors, or resistors) in
each black box so that the following is achieved:

1. If both knife switches are closed, then both lights are on.
2. If both knife switches are open, then both lights are off.
3. If knife switchK1 is closed and switchK2 is open, then
lightL1 goes on but lightL2 goes off (this is crazy). This is the
situation shown in the figure.
4. If knife switchK2 is closed and switchK1 is open, then
lightL2 goes on but lightL1 goes off (this is also crazy).

Note: This circuit makes a great demo for people just learning
physics or electronics. The parts in the black boxes are
sufficiently few and small that they can easily be concealed
inside the bases of the knife switches and of the light bulbs,
leading to a truly paradoxical circuit for the uninitiated.

Challenge35 Formula for the derivative of a determinant

Science students need to have a solid understanding of linear

algebra so here is a Challenge to test that solid understanding:
Consider a NNmatrixM(x) whose matrix elementsMij are
differentiable functions of some variablex and that is
nonsingular for all valuesx of interest. If a prime' denotes
differentiation with respect tox, derive the following formula:

det(M)'=det(M)Tr(M-1M').

In words, this formula says that the derivative of the determinant

of the matrixM is equal to the determinant ofM times the trace
of the matrix given by multiplying the inverse ofM (the
matrixM-1) with the derivative ofM (the matrixM').
Challenge36 Does a pendulum violate conservation of
momentum and angular momentum?

Consider a pendulum consisting of a heavy mass attached to a

thin rigid metal rod (of negligible weight compared to the mass).
The top end of the rod is attached to some pivot so that the
pendulum can swing freely back and forth from left to right. This
familiar innocent pendulum seems to have the alarming
property of violating the fundamental conservation laws of
momentum and angular momentum! For the momentum of the
pendulum oscillates in time (is not conserved), going from zero
(when the mass is at its highest say on the left), increasing to a
large positive value as the pendulum swings tot the right,
decreasing to zero as the pendulum reaches its maximum height
on the right, then changing sign and becoming negative as the
pendulum swings to the left. Similarly, the angular momentum of
the mass with respect to the pivot also oscillates in time. Explain
this paradox: how is it possible that these fundamental
conservation laws are violated?

Challenge37 The Human Basilisk

The basilisk is a small iguana-like reptile that has the remarkable

ability to run over water (e.g., when threatened):

You know from your own experience that you can not run over
water with your bare feet. By making appropriate order-of-
magnitude estimates (how much power a person can produce,
how fast one can pump one's legs up and down, how much force
you apply when you slap the water with your feet), estimate
whether a person could run on top of water if large oval flat pads
of some areaA were attached to the soles of each foot. (These
pads are not balloons that provide buoyancy, just a way to spread
the impact over a larger area.)

Challenge38 A simple weight-loss program: visit Ecuador

Assuming that the earth is spherical with radius R=6400km and

taking into account that it rotates once per day, calculate how
much less you weigh at the earth's equator than if you were
standing at the north or south pole.

Note1: Your analysis partially explains why countries place their

rocket launching pads as close to the equator as possible: the
rockets weigh less and so it costs less to launch them. A more
complete analysis requires taking into account that the earth is
not a sphere but an oblate spheroid, bulging a bit at the equator
and being flattened at the poles. This means that someone on the
equator is further from the center of the earth than at the poles
and so weighs a bit less even in the absence of rotation. This
makes the equator even more favorable for launching rockets.

Note2: Assuming a spherical rigid earth, see if you can work out
the more general case of the effect of the earth's rotation on
gravity: if your latitude is Tdegrees (measured from the equator),
how much less do you weigh than if the earth were not rotating?
By what angle would a hanging plumb bob deviate from the
normal to the surface? (It is the fact that gravity no longer points
along the normal that distorts a sphere into an oblate spheroid.)

Challenge39 A Pre-20th Century Derivation of the Radius of

a Black Hole

By the time one has finished a high school or first-year college

course on physics, one has learned about Newton's laws of
motion, about gravitational attraction, that the kinetic energy of
a particle of massm and speedv is given by (1/2)mv2, and that
light travels at a speedc. Use this pre-20th century knowledge to
show that if a sphere of massM has a radiusR given by

R = 2 M G / c2 ,

where G is the gravitational constant, then a particle on the

surface of this sphere can never attain escape velocity since it
speed would have to exceed the speed of lightc (the maximum
speed possible). The sphere is then effectively an invisible "black
hole", since even light can not escape from its surface.

Look up the appropriate masses in an astronomy textbook and

calculate this radius for the sun and for the earth and compare
with their actual radii. Also compare the density (kg per cubic
meter) for a solar black hole and compare with the density of
water, 1000kg/m3.

Note1: A particle on the surface of some object is said to attain

"escape velocity" if its kinetic energy exceeds the gravitational
potential energy gained by bringing the particle from infinity to
the surface of the attracting object.

Note2: This formula for the radius (known as the Schwarzschild

radius) is "correct" in the sense that an identical formula is found
when using Einstein's general theory of relativity. However,
there are considerable subtleties about the meaning of space,
time, and a radius in the vicinity of the enormous gravitational
field of a black hole and so it is somewhat of a coincidence that
the non-relativistic formula for kinetic energy and a Newtonian
treatment of gravity yield this particular formula.

Challenge40 How does a battery lose its power?

Flashlights and radios depend on familiar D, C, and AA-type

batteries. If these batteries are in constant use (e.g., a flashlight is
left on), investigate and plot how the voltage and current vary
with timet. Does the battery maintain a constant voltage until
close to the end of its life? Do you get different answers for
different kinds of batteries with the same voltage, say alkaline
and carbon?

Challenge41 A relativity paradox: flashlights pointing in

opposite directions?

An astronaut in space turns on two flashlights simultaneously

and pointing in opposite directions, sending out two beams that
both move away from the astronaut at the speed of light. How
fast does the front of one beam move away from the front of the
other beam? Is this a contradiction of Einstein's theory of special
relativity?

Challenge42 How does a sailboat move upwind?

A sailboat has the somewhat paradoxical ability to move upwind,

i.e., to move towards the source of the wind that is blowing on its
sail. Explain how this is possible.

As a more quantitative challenge, determine how to choose the

angleu of the sail with respect to the wind and the anglev of the
boat with respect to the sail so as to move upwind as fast as
possible.

Comment: If you make some idealizations, e.g., that the boat has
a keel that keeps the boat moving in a fixed direction along the
axis of the boat, that the sail is a vertical planar sheet, that the
pressure on the sail is sin(u) times the maximum wind pressure,
and that the speed of the boat is proportional to the wind
pressure, you should be able to show that the maximum speed
upwind is 1/8 the maximum speed downwind, and that this
maximum upwind speed is achieved when the sail is turned to an
angle of u=30degrees with respect to the wind and when the boat
is turned to an angle of v=30degrees with respect to the sail.

Challenge43 Exploring the solar system with a light sail.

Visionaries have proposed exploring the solar system with "light

sails", small vessels attached to huge thin flat reflecting sheets
that would be pushed around by the pressure of sun light.

Work out some of the details of a light sail, which involves

understanding the balance of gravitational and light pressure
forces. A simple way to think of a light sail is a huge flat sheet of
areaA and massM which can be steered by pointing its normal
vector in various directions. How would you choose the
orientation of the light sail to move in a particular direction? If
the total light intensity on the sail isI (in kilowatts/meter2), how
fast could you accelerate in some given direction? Since light
sails don't have keels like water-based sailboats (which keeps
them moving in a straight line), is it possible to sail upwind
towards the sun?

To get a sense of the orders of magnitude involved, assume that

you have a solar sail that is perfectly reflective and perfectly flat,
that you want to accelerate a payload of 50kg (representing say a
few friends, food, a few suitcases, and the weight of the solar sail
itself), and that the solar light intensity at Earth's distance from
the sun is 1.4kilowatt/meter2. How large would the area of the
sail have to be if you wanted to sail from from the Earth to the
Moon in a week's time? From the Earth to Mars in a year's time?

Challenge44 Three problems about the single-particle one-

dimensional time-independent Schrodinger equation.

When learning quantum mechanics, one first learns about the

single-particle one-dimensional time-independent Schrodinger
equation for a particle of massm in a potentialV(x). Determine
whether the following three statements are true or false about
the wave functions satisfying this equation:

1. Unbound (scattering) states always lie above bound states,

i.e., the lower bound of energies for unbound states is always
greater than the upper bound of energies for bound states.

2. For bound states, the variance <(x - <x>)2 > of the particle's
position always increases as its energyE increases (becomes
less negative).

3. For any two bound states with energiesE1 andE 2,

their separation |E1-E2| decreases as the particle massm
increases.

More generally: the energy of a photon needed to excite a

molecule from one bound state to another decreases as the
nuclear masses of the molecule are increased (leaving the
potential unchanged, e.g., by replacing atoms by heavier
isotopes).

Challenge45 Transmission of Light Through Three

Polarized Sunglasses

Many sunglasses have the property of being "polaroid" which

means that they filter the light in a special way (they produce
what is called "linearly polarized light"). Now a single pair of
polaroid sunglasses is a strong filter and substantially reduces
the intensity of light passing through it. If you look through two
pairs of polaroid sunglasses simultaneously, you get a further
reduction in light intensity but something funny happens: if you
rotate the second pair of sunglasses while holding the first fixed,
you can reduce the amount of light that gets through almost to
nothing; one sees nearly total darkness.
So here is something strange to think about: if you hold two pairs
of sunglasses so that almost no light gets through, and then you
insert a third pair of polaroid sunglasses between the first two
pairs, you will now find that, for certain orientations of the
middle (third) pair of sunglasses, light gets through again.
Explain this: how is it possible that one can add a filter that, by
itself, reduces light intensity but here increases the light
intensity? Can you identify and explain the angle at which you
should hold the middle pair of sunglasses to maximize the
amount of light that gets through?

Challenge46 Laws of Friction for Boats

Introductory physics courses often talk about some simple

empirical "laws" of friction for one solid surface rubbing against
another solid surface. One surprising law is that the friction force
is independent of the surface area of contact. Another law is that
the friction force is proportional to the normal force that presses
one surface against the other. (See Challenge33, "Critical angle of
rolling for two adjacent cylinders on a ramp", which gives you a
chance to test your understanding of these friction laws.)

So here is an experimental Challenge for the next time you take a

bath in a big bathtub: what are the "laws of friction" for a solid
surface rubbing against a liquid surface, e.g., a flat-bottom boat
pulled along on the surface of a deep body of water? More
specifically:

Is the "friction force" needed to pull a boat through the water

at constant speed proportional to the area of the boat's
bottom?
Is the friction force for a boat proportional to the normal
force, i.e., to the weight of the boat? You can test this by
taking a toy flat-bottom boat and loading it with varying
amounts of nails.
Does the friction force needed to pull a boat through the
 water depend on the shape of the boat's bottom? If so what
shape will minimize the force for a given area? You could
explore this by cutting out various simple shapes of equal
area out of water-proof cardboard.
Does the friction force depend on the speed of the boat?

For the purposes of this Challenge, qualitative answers are fine

although a quantitative study would certainly be more
interesting and satisfying.

A historical comment: at my undergraduate University

(Harvard), there was a spring-time "Adam's House Raft Race" in
which students were invited to create their own rafts and race
against each other in Boston's Charles River. This race stimulated
many theoretical and experimental questions about what kind of
raft would be the fastest for 2-4 students who would sit in or on
the raft and paddle like crazy. By the way, some students went
for creativity rather than speed, e.g. one raft was a two-level
bunk bed on foam pillows.

Challenge47 Two-Slit Interference Pattern With Polarized

Light

Consider the following variation of the two-slit interference

experiment that is often discussed in introductory physics
courses to illustrate the fact that light and sound are wave-like
phenomena. Take a monochromatic but unpolarized beam of
light (e.g., using sunlight, a prism and some lenses) and focus the
beam on an opaque wall with two vertical slits. Also assume that
the widths of the slits and the distance between the slits are
chosen so that one gets a nice interference pattern of light
intensity on some screen beyond the wall. (Basically, the slits and
their separation should be comparable to the wavelength of the
monochromatic light).

Now consider putting in front of each slit a high quality linear

polarizing filter than can each be rotated around an axis
perpendicular to the direction of light. Explain what happens to
the interference pattern on the screen as one linear polarizer is
rotated through an angle of 360degrees while the other polarizer
is fixed in its orientation. In other words, what is the effect of
polarization on the interference pattern of the beams?

Challenge48 Ant On a Loudspeaker

A loudspeaker is placed on its back so that the speaker cone is

open to the air and faces up towards the ceiling. As a small ant
starts to walk across the speaker cone, the cone is set into
vibration up and down by playing a pure sinusoidal tone of
amplitudeA and of frequencyf. Assuming that the ant rests on
the surface of the speaker without any adhesion (ignore its sticky
feet!), determine the values ofA andf for which the ant will be
thrown clear of the speaker, i.e., for which the ant will no longer
be in physical contact with the speaker cone.

Comment: Scientists have recently explored what happens when

a shallow layer of tiny brass balls is put in a cup and this cup is
shaken up and down sinusoidally, just like the poor ant above.
Much to everyone's surprise, the scientists found a remarkable
richness of spatial patterns and dynamics as the amplitude and
frequency of the shaking were varied. You can see some pictures
and learn more from the web page
http://chaos.ph.utexas.edu/research/granular/granular.html .
Your analysis of the ant on the speaker cone is actually a
valuable first step towards understanding the origin of the
patterns in the thin layer of brass balls.

Challenge49 Is X-Ray Vision Possible?

Animals, insects, and reptiles can see light with wavelengths

varying from 10,000nm in the infrared to about 100nm in the
ultraviolet. (Humans see from deep red at 700nm to violet at
400nm.) Given that vision depends on the absorption of light by
some molecule, is it possible in principle for a biological
organism to develop X-ray vision, i.e., the ability to detect light
with wavelengths of 10nm or less?

Challenge50 The Nano-nut-Dropping Nano-Squirrel

A nano-squirrel on a nano-tree is trying to drop nano-nuts into a

small nano-hole directly under itself. If the nano-squirrel is at
heightH above the ground, if the gravitational acceleration isg, if
each nano-nut is a point particle of massm, and each nano-nut is
released with zero initial velocity using the best reproducible
nanotechnology, use the position-momentum uncertainty
principle to show that, despite the best efforts of the nano-
squirrel, the nano-nuts will end up spread over the ground in a
region of radiusR satisfying the inequality

R >= [ 8 hbar2 H / ( m2 g ) ]1/4 .

where hbar is Planck's constant.

Challenge51 How Quickly Does a Scent Travel By Collisions

Only?

Consider a straight glass tube of length L=2cm connected to a

closed vial of a strong perfume at one end and to your nose at the
other end. Assuming that you can detect a scent the first time at
least 10perfume molecules enter your nose simultaneously,
estimate how long it will take for you to smell the perfume after
the vial is opened.

Some comments: The purpose of the glass tube is to eliminate

possible air currents so that the perfume spreads from the vial to
your nose only by molecular collisions. You can assume that the
vial is connected to the tube by a sealed joint so that the tube is
the only way that the perfume can reach your nose. Also assume
that you can hold your breath long enough to carry out this
experiment, so that you don't have to take into account the strong
wind currents associated with your breathing. Finally, don't be
too quick to use a diffusion equation (if you know what that is)
since this problem concerns specifically a regime in which a
continuum description of the perfume concentration is likely not
to be a good approximation.

Challenge52 How high can a tree grow?

The Sequoia pines in California are among the tallest trees in the
world and can attain a height of 110meters. Is this the largest
possible height for a tree on earth? This is not just a biological or
evolutionary question but involves some interesting physics,
much of which is accessible at the level of an introductory
undergraduate course in thermodynamics and statistical
mechanics.

One constraint on the height of a tree is simply the material

strength of the wood, or of the root system that supports the tree
in a vertical position. A tree that is too tall may break under its
own weight or become unstable to falling over because of strong
winds. The latter seems to be more likely from my own
observations of when Hurricane Fran swept through Durham,
North Carolina, in1996, knocking over many big trees without
breaking them. Evidently the roots were not strong enough to
withstand the large forces and either broke or were pulled out of
the ground which had been softened by the rain. Can you suggest
experiments, say on beams of wood bought at a lumber store or
on small trees, that could help to determine the mechanical limits
of a tall tree? Is the height of a Sequoia determined by the
strength of its wood or of its roots?

When one looks more into the biology of trees, another

constraint arises that has nothing to do with mechanical strength,
which is the issue of water transport. Trees get water primarily
from their roots which implies that trees have to raise the water
from their roots through a gravitational potentialMgh to provide
water to leaves at the top of the tree. (HereM is the mass of a
water molecule in kilograms, g=9.8m/sec2 is the acceleration of
gravity, andh is the height of the tree in meters.) How can a
Sequoia lift water so high?

One possibility is to think of the tree as a tall straw that sucks

the water from its roots up to its highest branches. Assuming
that the tree can produce a perfect vacuum in the vicinity of
its leaves (don't ask me how), determine the maximum height
in meters for a tree allowed by suction. You can assume that
the surrounding pressure is standard atmospheric pressure,
P=105N/m 2.

Your answer should be nonsensical, trees would be limited to

unreasonably small heights if they transported water by
suction. An alternative possibility comes from knowing that
tree leaves "transpire", i.e., give off water moisture through
their leaves. As water evaporates from the leaves, it
effectively pulls up a little bit an entire chain of water
leading from the roots to the leaves, as other water molecules
move into the place of the recently evaporated ones. More
carefully, the difference in concentration between the
saturated water vapor just at the surface of the leaf and the
less saturated water vapor in the atmosphere beyond the leaf
creates a difference in chemical potential that could provide
the energy to lift a water molecule through the height of a
tree. Given this, calculate the heighth of the largest possible
tree and determine whether trees are limited in height by
this mechanism of water transport.

Some suggestions: First, let's assume that the entire tree and
its surrounding are in thermal equilibrium at room
temperature (T=293oK) so we can try to use ideas from
thermodynamics. The energyMgh needed to lift a water
molecule through the height of the tree could then be
obtained by the change in chemical potential when a water
molecule in the liquid phase inside the leaf evaporates to
become part of the water vapor away from the leaf.
Thermodynamics books show that the change in chemical
potential for a gaseous molecule that moves from a region of
one concentration to a region of a different concentration is
given by-kTln(r) wherer is the ratio of the concentrations
and where kis the Boltzmann constant. A plausible value for
the ratior might be the relative humidity, which is found
empirically to be about90% in the vicinity of tree leaves.

Note that a mechanism based on the change in chemical

potential leads to the testable prediction that trees can not
transport water if the surrounding air is completely
saturated with water vapor.

Breaking a chemical bond can release of order one tenth to

one electron volt of energy (which is also the range of energy
available by the absorption of a single photon for
photosynthesis). About how many chemical bonds would
have to be broken in a biochemical reaction to raise a single
water molecule to the top of a Sequoia tree?

Note: Using energy released by chemical reactions for

biological transport is called "active transport", as opposed to
"passive transport" mechanisms like suction or transpiration
which involve no chemical reactions. Is active transport a
practical possibility for explaining water transport? It may
help to appreciate that a 15-meter tall maple tree with about
180,000leaves and total leaf area of about 700meter2
evaporates of order 200liters of water per hour on average,
from which you can estimate a lower bound on the daily
energy needed for active water transport.

Another possibility for raising water is by capillary action,

the tendency of water in a thin vertical tube to climb up
along the walls because of surface tension and wetting. By
balancing the force of surface tension pulling water up along
the walls of a tube against the force of gravity pulling the
mass of a cylindrical water column down, one can derive the
following relation for the heighth to which water will climb
up a tube from its base:

h = 2 S cos(alpha) / (r rho g) ,

where his the height in meters, Sis the surface tension

(about 0.07Newton/meter at room temperature), alpha is the
"contact angle" in radians which the water makes with the
tube at the edge of the miniscus, ris the radius of the column
in meters, rhois the density of water (about 1000 kg/m3 at
room temperature), and gis the gravitational acceleration
 (9.8m/sec2). For glass capillaries and in small plant channels,
the contact angle alpha is about0 so cos(alpha) can be
approximated by1.

From this relation and these data, estimate the radius of an

internal tube in the tree that could raise water to a height of
100meters. Is this radius biologically plausible?

Challenge53 The Great Snowplow Chase

On a certain winter day, snow starts to fall at a heavy and steady

rate. Three identical snowplows start plowing the same road, the
first leaving at 12noon, the second leaving at 1pm, and the third
leaving at 2pm. At some time later, they all collide. At what time
did the snow start to fall?

Note: Assume that the speed of a snowplow is inversely

proportional to the depth of the snow.

Challenge54 A telescope made from a rotating mercury

mirror.

Before recent breakthroughs in telescope design (which allow

images from many small reflecting mirrors to be combined by
computer into an image corresponding to a single effective
mirror with total area equal to that of the smaller mirrors), the
largest possible ground-based reflecting telescope was limited by
how large a single plate of glass could be made and ground into a
mirror. However, scientists had thought of and tried an ingenious
alternative, which was to fill a large cylindrical tank with liquid
mercury and rotate the tank around its axis. The shiny surface of
the mercury then deforms into a shape that can be used as a
large and inexpensive telescope mirror.

Work out the design of such a rotating mercury mirror. First

show that the surface of the mercury will take on the shape of a
paraboloid of revolution. Next, determine the focal length of this
paraboloid as a function of the angular rotation frequencyw of
the tank. Finally, determine the angular frequency needed to
achieve a focal length of one meter.

Is it possible to avoid the drawback that such a mercury-based

mirror will always point directly overhead?

Challenge55 Sinking Submarines Versus Floating Balloons

Explain why an inflated balloon (made of a rigid plastic material)

will rise to a definite height once it starts to rise, while a
submarine will always sink to the bottom of the ocean once it
starts to sink.

Challenge56 The optimal shape for a snowman to reduce

melting.

A snowman is traditionally made of three balls of snow stacked

one above the other. Explain why a sphere is also the optimal
shape for a snowman body part in the sense that, for a given
volume of snow, it will melt the least rapidly as the weather
becomes warm. For example, a snowman made of cubes, boxes,
cylinders, triangular prisms, pyramids, or tetrahedra will melt
more rapidly than a traditional snowman.

For simplicity, assume that the air is uniformly the same warm
temperature, ignore the effects of wind and sunlight, and ignore
the fact that the shape will eventually sag because of melting and
gravity.

Challenge57 Average distance between two random points

in a sphere.

Show that the average distance between two points that are
chosen randomly and uniformly in a sphere of radius1 is 36/35,
about 1.029.

Most computer languages have a function rand() for generating

random numbers uniformly in the interval [0,1]. Can you figure
out how to use such a generator to create randomly and
uniformly distributed points in a sphere? If so, write a short
computer program and confirm your analytical result by
generating many random uniform pairs of points inside the
sphere and by averaging the distances between the pairs of
points.

Challenge58 The temperature of a hot spot made from a

magnifying glass.

You have presumably had the fun of focusing sunlight with a

magnifying glass to burn a hole in a piece of paper. Now think
about this more deeply from a physics point of view: given any
arrangement of lenses and reflectors of any arbitrary size and
shape, how hot can you make a single spot by focusing light from
the Sun on that spot? In particular, could you make a spot of
focused sunlight hotter than the surface temperature of the Sun,
which is about 6000K?

This problem has an interesting historical precedent. Archimedes

supposedly recommended that Greek warriors try to set fire to
Roman ships by focusing sunlight with their shields onto the
wood ships. Assuming that the shields were flat and that about
50% of the light is reflected off the shields, estimate how many
Greek soldiers would be needed to focus the sunlight and set a
Roman ship on fire. A useful piece of data is that a lens of
diameter 3cm and focal length 10cm is capable of burning wood
with sunlight.

Challenge59 An inverse rocket and an inverse sprinkler.

 1. Consider a cylindrical can of highly compressed gas in outer
space. You know that if you puncture a hole in the can so that
the gas can leak out, the can will start moving like a rocket, in
a direction opposite to that of the leaking gas.

Now consider an "inverse" problem in which a cylindrical

can is completely empty (has a vacuum) and is inserted into a
big tub of water. Also imagine the experiment being done on
the space shuttle so that there is no buoyancy force that
would push the can to the surface of the tub. The can is now
punctured at one end so that a jet of water starts to stream
into the can. In what direction will the can move and why?

2. A similar problem: Consider a lawn sprinkler consisting of

three arms that rotate in a circle as water sprays out. But
now consider putting the sprinkler at the bottom of a big
tank of water and using a pump to suck water out of the
sprinker (so that water now flows into the arms of the
sprinkler and out through the hose). In what direction will
the arms turn and why?

Challenge60 Bank shots on an elliptical billiard table.

Consider two point balls B1 and B2 placed on a mathematical

billiard table whose shape is that of an ellipse, rather than the
traditional rectangle. In what direction should one shoot ball B1
so that it bounces once off the ellipical side wall and hits ball B2?
For this problem, ignore the spinning of the billiard ball.

In case you haven't played billiards before, you should know that
a ball bounces off a wall according to the law of reflection, i.e.,
the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection as measured
with respect to a line normal to the tangent at the point on the
wall where the ball bounces. For a rectangular table, the strategy
would be this: drop a perpendicular from ball B1 to a side of the
table and then extend the perpendicular an equal distance
beyond the table to obtain point P1. Draw the line between point
P1 and ball B2 and identify the point P2 where this line intersects
the side of the table. You then want to point your cue stick at
point P2 to hit a bank shot that will connect with ball B2.

Challenge61 Size of smallest asteroid that a person could

jump off of.

In the not so far future, it may be possible to land an astronaut

on an asteroid. Based on how high you can jump on earth,
determine the maximize size of a spherical asteroid that you
could jump completely off of. The typical density of a rocky
asteroid is about 3000 kg/m3.

Challenge62 Why does a rotating positronium atom live

longer?

There exists in nature a positively-charged particle called the

positron, which is the antiparticle of an electron in that it is
completely identical (same mass, same amount of electrical
charge, same amount of spin) except that it is positively charged.
Experiments show that an electron and positron can combine
into a neutral atom called positronium, which is nearly identical
in its properties to a hydrogen atom once the difference in
relative mass is taken into account. However, while a hydrogen
atom can persist forever in its ground state, a positronium atom
exists only for a short time, about 10-10seconds. The reason is
that there is a finite probability of finding the electron and
positron in the same small region of space in which case the two
particles can annihilate one other, the positronium atom
disappears, and in its place two high-energy photons (gamma
rays) are observed.
Explain why a rotating positronium atom with large orbital
quantum numberl will, on average, live for a longer time than a
positronium atom in its ground state before disintegrating into
two gamma rays.

Challenge63 Unusual lenses of air and of iron.

1. A scuba-diving archeologist would like to create an

underwater magnifying glass out of a flexible plastic bag
filled with air so that she can read the fine print of a sunken
Greek ruin. What shape should the bag have to act as a
magnifying glass?

2. Sound waves move with different speeds in different media

and so sound can be refracted and focused by lenses just like
light waves. As an impressive example, the earth's large
spherical iron core acts like a lens that can focus sound
waves emitted by an explosion or earthquake at the earth's
surface. Using the following information and your
elementary knowledge of optics (in particular, the formula
that describes how paraxial rays are refracted by a spherical
interface between two media of known indexes of
refraction), estimate the focal length of the earth's iron core
as a spherical lens embedded in less dense crustal rock. For
an additional challenge, work out the details of how sound
from an explosion in Durham, North Carolina, will appear as
an "image" on the opposite side of the world.
Here are the data: the speed of sound (and so the index of
refraction) varies with depth in the earth in a complicated
way, as summarized in a Encyclopedia Britannica figure. For
simplicity, assume that the earth's inner iron core of radius
3,500km has a constant sound speed of 9km/sec. Similarly,
let's assume that the earth's crust, which extends from 3,500
to 6,400km has a constant sound speed of 11km/sec. Let's
also ignore the fact that sound waves in a solid medium,
 unlike light in vacuum, can be longitudinal as well as
transverse and these components travel with different
speeds. The above speeds are for the faster longitudinal
component.

Challenge64 Does a neutrally buoyant balloon rise or fall as

the temperature increases?

Consider a spherical balloon filled with helium gas and then

weighted so that it remains motionless in the center of a sealed
box of air at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. If the
box is slowly and uniformly warmed so that the temperature
everywhere inside increases by a small amount, determine
whether the balloon will rise, fall, or remain in the same place.

Challenge65 Origin of Unusual Radio Noise

In 1931, after inventing a sensitive short-wave radio receiver, an

engineer heard an unusual noise on his receiver that would
appear about the same time each day and then disappear a little
later. In trying to learn more about this noise, the engineer made
careful measurements and discovered that the noise began four
minutes earlier each successive day according to the clock on his
wall. What startling conclusion did these measurements imply
about the origin of the noise in the radio receiver?

Challenge66 Swimming through the air on the

International Space Station.

Imagine that you are a future tourist on the International Space

Station and, having forgotten to buckle yourself into bed at night,
you wake up the next morning floating freely and weightless in
the middle of your bedroom chamber. Would it be possible for
you to "swim" through the air to get back to your bed? If so,
would you use the same kind of swimming strokes as you would
to swim underwater? If you can swim through the air, what
would be the order of magnitude of your maximum speed?

Note: You could always get back to your bed by taking off your
pajamas, wadding them into a ball, and then throwing them in a
direction opposite to that of your bed. Conservation of
momentum would then give you a small velocity in the direction
of your bed (can you estimate the order of magnitude of this
speed?). But here the interest lies in the fluid dynamics of a large
mass (you) trying to swim through a medium of small viscosity
(air).

Challenge67 Distinguishing a Fast Cooler Star From a Slow

Warmer Star

Introductory astronomy and physics courses teach the

interesting fact that the color of a remote star can be used to
determine how hot the star is. More precisely, these courses
teach that the light from a star, when passed through a prism or
diffraction grating, produces a special rainbow called a
"blackbody spectrum" whose shape (light intensityI plotted as a
function of the wavelength of light) is "universal" in the sense
that the curveI() depends only on the temperatureT (in kelvin)
of the surface of the star and not at all on the star's chemical
composition or size. Further, the blackbody curveI() has a
single peak and the wavelength max corresponding to that peak
can be used to deduce the temperature of the star's surface by
something called "Wien's law", namely thatT=C/max whereC
is some universal constant that applies to all hot opaque objects.

The discussions in these introductory courses usually assume

that the star is sitting still in space, but in fact most stars are
moving toward or away from the Earth, some with a high speed.
So consider a remote star whose surface temperature isT and
assume that the star is moving directly toward the Earth with a
speeds. Then something called the Doppler effect will cause the
wavelength of each component of the light to become a little
shorter ("blueshifted"). In particular, the wavelengthmax
corresponding to the peak of the star's spectrum will be
blueshifted and and so an astronomer applying Wien's law to the
star's spectrum will deduce an incorrect higher temperature for
the surface of the star since in the relation T=C/max, the
wavelength in the denominator is a bit smaller than its actual
value.

Your challenge: Is there some way for the astronomer to

determine that he or she is looking at a fast cooler star versus a
slow warmer star?

Note: The spectra from stars often have dark sharp absorption
lines caused by elements in the outer cooler atmosphere of the
star absorbing and then reemitting parts of the blackbody
radiation coming from the star's surface. It would be
straightforward to determine the speed of the star by measuring
how much the wavelengths of the absorption lines are Doppler
shifted compared to wavelengths of emission lines of the same
elements in a laboratory on Earth. Here the question is how the
Doppler effect modifies the blackbody spectrum and whether, in
principle, observations of just the blackbody spectrum can be
used to deduce the speed and temperature of a remote glowing
object.

Challenge68The ollie: how does a skateboarder get that

board off the ground?

A basic move in skateboarding is an "ollie", which gets the

skateboarder and skateboard high into the air.
Since the skateboarder's feet are resting on the skateboard
without any attachment, use your knowledge of physics (and
perhaps of skateboarding) to explain how it is possible to push
down on the board and so get the board high into the air. How
also is it possible for the skateboard to stay in contact with the
feet during a jump like this?

Challenge69 Will a neutrally buoyant relativistic

submarine sink or rise?

Consider some futuristic submarine that can travel close to the

speed of light while submerged under water and let us assume
that, when the submarine has its propulsion system turned off
and is at rest in the water, that its ballast is adjusted so that the
submarine is neutrally buoyant and so neither sinks nor rises.
Now assume that the submarine speeds up to close to the speed
of light in some huge ocean, initially traveling parallel to the
surface of the ocean. Will the submarine sink, rise, or continue to
travel parallel to the surface of the ocean?

Some thoughts: a fish that is at rest with respect to the ocean and
that watches the submarine zoom by will presumably see the
submarine relativistically contract along its length and so the fish
will conclude that the submarine is denser than the surrounding
water and will sink. But sailors in the submarine will presumably
see the water coming toward them at high speed and so they will
conclude that the relativistically contracted water is denser than
the submarine and so the submarine should rise. So who is right,
the fish or the sailors?

Challenge70 Does one have to be quiet in order not to scare

the fish away?

Fishermen on the shore of a lake or in a stream often try to be

quiet so as not to scare the fish away. Using the fact that the
speed of sound is about 340m/s in air and about 1,500m/s in
water, use Snell's law of refraction to determine how far back
from the shore a 1.7m tall fisherman would have to stand so that
the sound of the fisherman's voice could not be heard by any fish
in the water. (Assume that the sound does not propagate through
the ground.) Show also that if the fisherman stands in the water
near the shore, then a fish would be able to the fisherman's voice
no matter where the fish is located (although more loudly in
some places than others).

Challenge71 Throwing a baseball versus throwing a

bowling ball.

If you can throw a baseball with a certain maximum speed, what

would be the maximum speed you can throw a more massive
object like a bowling ball?

Some data: a baseball has an official mass of about 0.15kg

(weight of about 5 oz) while 10-pin bowling balls start with a
mass of about 3.6kg (8lb). The fastest measured baseball pitch
had a speed of 100.9mph (about 45m/s).

Challenge72 Doppler shift or not for co-falling source and

detector?
A loudspeaker is attached to the bottom of a 3m vertical rigid rod
and a microphone is attached to the top of the same rod. If the
loudspeaker emits a pure tone of frequency f=1000Hz when the
rod is at rest, what frequency does the microphone measure as a
function of time if the entire apparatus is dropped from a tall
tower?

Challenge73 High tide on the Moon.

If the Moon were warm and had a water ocean like the Earth,
would there be tides on the Moon like there are on Earth? If so,
how often would high tide occur?

Challenge74 The economics of a lunar rocket base.

President Bush has proposed to build a base on the Moon by 2018

from which future rockets could be launched to Mars or other
parts of the solar system. Where should such a rocket base be
placed on the Moon, in what direction should the rocket be
pointed when launched, at what point in the Moon's orbit should
the rocket be launched, and with what minimum speed should
the rocket be launched so that it can escape the Moon-Earth
system?

Challenge75 Deducing the location of heaven from Satan's

fall.

In the book Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein's Letters to

and from Children edited by Alice Calaprice (Prometheus Books,
2002), a student Jerry from Richmond, Virginia, wrote the
following letter to Einstein in 1952:
Dear Sir,

I am a high school student and have a problem.

My teacher and I were talking about Satan. Of course

you know that when he fell from heaven, he fell for
nine days, and nine nights, at 32 feet a second and was
increasing his speed every second.

I was told there was a foluma [formula] to it. I know

you don't have time for such little things, but if
possible please send me the foluma.

Thank you,
Jerry

It seems that Einstein did not reply to Jerry but this provides an
opportunity to do some detective work using physics.

1. Assuming that Satan indeed fell from heaven for nine days
and nine nights, assuming that Satan's initial speed was zero,
and assuming that Satan fell with a constant acceleration of
g=9.8m/s 2, deduce how far from Earth heaven must

lie and also deduce the speed with which Satan struck the
surface of the Earth.

2. Make a more realistic calculation by assuming that the

gravitational accelerationg of Satan during his fall was not
constant but decreased with increasing distance from Earth
according to Newton's universal law of gravity, g=GME/d2,
whereG is the universal gravitational constant, ME is the
mass of the Earth, andd is the distance of Satan to the center
of the Earth at a particular moment. (Ignore the fact that
Satan would also be acted on by gravitational forces from the
Sun and other planets.) What now would be the location of
heaven from Earth if Satan fell for nine days and nine nights
under these conditions, and with what speed would Satan
now strike the Earth's surface?
Challenge76 Which way was the bicycle moving?

The picture below shows the tracks made by the two wheels of a
bicycle as it was traveling through snow. In which direction (left
to right or right to left) was the bicycle moving? Which trace
corresponds to the rear wheel, which to the front wheel?

Challenge77 Rendezvous

You have been wandering in a desert, crazed with thirst for

several days, when you see a truck traveling on a straight east-
west road, where the road is south of your location. In what
direction should you run to maximize your chance to arrive at
the road in time to be picked up by the truck and be saved?

For this Challenge, assume that you run at a constant speed in a

straight direction, and that the truck also travels with a constant
speed (whose value you do not know). A hint: you generally do
not want to run to the nearest part of the road.

This challenge could also be posed in nautical terms: you are on a

small lifeboat when you see off in the distance a large ship
moving in a straight line at a constant speed. In what fixed
direction should you paddle as fast as you can (at some constant
speed) to maximize your chance of intercepting the ship so you
can be rescued?

Challenge78 Tough balancing act

Explain how to arrange ten large identical steel nails so that they
are all supported off the ground by just the head of an eleventh
identical vertical nail.
Note: The nails can touch only each other and the head of the
vertical nail. You can not use any other items in solving this
Challenge such as glue or magnets.

Challenge79 Can One Boil Water With Boiling Water?

A pot of water is brought to a steady boil on a stove and then a

thin plastic cup of room temperature water is suspended in the
boiling water so that no part of the cup touches the pot (see
above figure). Will the water in the cup start to boil if you wait
long enough?

After you have convinced yourself what the answer should be,
try the experiment (but please be careful, don't burn yourself!).

Challenge80 How should a lifeguard run and swim to save a

drowning person?

Assume that you are a lifeguard at location L on a beach when

you see someone starting to drown at location D in the water.
Assume that you can run on sand (orange region) with a speed vs
that is substantially larger than the speed vw with which you can
swim in water (blue region), and assume that to save the person,
you run in a straight line fromL until you reach some pointP on
the shore and then swim fromP in a straight line until you reach
the drowning person. Determine the location ofP that would let
you reach the drowning person in the shortest amount of time.

To make the problem specific, assume that the Cartesian

coordinates of the lifeguard is (xL,yL), that the coordinates of the
drowning person is (xD,yD) and that the shoreline has coordinate
y=0.

Challenge81 Maximum electric field from an electrically

charged blob of clay?

You are given a volume V of a malleable incompressible non-

conducting material like clay that has a uniform charge density
throughout its volume. Determine how to shape the material and
place the resulting shape to as to produce the largest possible
electric field magnitude E at some point P of interest.

Challenge82 Thickness of a flat Earth.

It was once thought that the Earth was flat, rather than in the
shape of a ball. Assuming that the Earth is a large flat slab with a
mass density of 5,500kg/m3 (this is the average mass density of
Earth), use Gauss's law to determine how thick the slab would
have to be so that the gravitational acceleration at the surface of
the slab is 10m/s2.

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