PHY 5113 PHYSICS FOR ENGINEERS I: TUTORIAL N0 1

Units, Physical quantities and Vectors

1) Find the number of significant digits in each of the following measurements:

(a) 0.002060 (g) 3.500 x 10-4

(b) 98 000 (h) 876 000.
(c) 200.003 (i) 3.2 x 1046
(d) 5678.94 (j) 1.000000
(e) 0.0000012 (k) 0.002 x 104

2) In each calculation, round the answer to the correct number of significant figures

A. 235.05 + 19.6 + 2.1 =

B. 58.925 - 18.2 =

C. 2.19 X 4.2 =

D. 4.311 ÷ 0.07 =

2.54 u 0.0028
E.
0.0105 u 0.060

4) Find out what some prefixes of units?

Write the following expressions using prefixes. For example 100,000 meters is 100 km
a) 10,000,000 watts
b) 0.0003 g
c) 3 u1010 m
d) 20,000 seconds

S. Jean de la Croix, PHY 5113 Physics for Engineers I, Tutorial 1, UR-CST, 2014-2015 Page 1
6) When Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens in 490 B.C. to bring word of the Greek
victory over Persians, he probably ran at a speed of about 23 rides per hour (rides/h). The ride is
an ancient Greek unit of length, as are the stadium and the plenthron: 1 ride was defined to be 4
stadia, 1 stadium was defined to be 6plenthra, and, in terms of a modern unit, 1 plenthron is
30.8m. How fast did Pheidippides run in kilometres per second (km/s)?

7) The cran is a British volume unit for freshly caught herrings: 1 cran=170.474 litres (L) of
fish, about 750 herrings. Suppose that, to be cleared through customs in Saudia Arabia, a
shipment of 1255 crans must be declared in terms of cubic covidos, where the covodo is an
Arabic unit of length: 1 covido=48.26cm. What is the required declaration?

8) Horses are to race over a certain English meadow for a distance of 4.0 furlongs. What is the
race distance in (a) rods and (b) chains? (1 furlong=201.168m, 1 rod=5.0292m, and 1 chain=
20.117 m.)

9) A fortnight is a charming English measure of time equal to 2.0 weeks (the word is a
contraction of "fourteen nights"). That is a nice amount of time in pleasant company but perhaps
a painful string of microseconds in unpleasant company. How many microseconds are in a
fortnight?

10) Three digital clocks A, B, and C run at different rates and do not have simultaneous readings
of zero. Figure 1-1 shows simultaneous readings on pairs of the clocks for four occasions. (At the
earliest occasion, for example, B reads 25.0 s and C reads 92.0 s.) If two events are 600 s apart
on clock A, how far apart are they on (a) clock B and (b) clock C? (c) When clock A reads 400 s,
what does clock B read? (d) When clock C reads 15.0 s, what does clock B read? (Assume
negative readings for prezero times.)

S. Jean de la Croix, PHY 5113 Physics for Engineers I, Tutorial 1, UR-CST, 2014-2015 Page 2
Fig.1.1

11) Gold, which has a density of 19.32 g/cm3, is the most ductile metal and can be pressed into a
thin leaf or drawn out into a long fibre. (a) If a sample of gold, with a mass of 27 .63 g, is pressed
into a leaf of 1 .000 μm thickness, what is the area of the leaf? (b) If, instead, the gold is drawn
out into a cylindrical fibre of radius 2.500μm, what is the length of the fibre?

12) The record for the largest glass bottle was set in 1992 by a team in Millville, New Jersey-
they blew a bottle with a volume of 193 U.S. fluid gallons. (a) How much short of 1.0 million
cubic centimetres is that? (b) If the bottle were filled with water at the leisurely rate of 1.8 g/min,
how long would the filling take? Water has a density of 1000 kg/m3.

13) Earth has a mass of 5.98 x1024 kg. The average mass of the atoms that make up Earth is 40
u. How many atoms are there in Earth?

14) A tourist purchases a car in England and ships it home to the United States. The car sticker
advertised that the car's fuel consumption was at the rate of 40 miles per gallon on the open road.
The tourist does not realize that the U.K. gallon differs from the U.S. gallon:
1 U.K. gallon = 4.545 9631 litres
1 U.S. gallon = 3.785 306 0 litres.
For a trip of 750 miles (in the United States), how many gallons of fuel does (a) the mistaken
tourist believe she needs and (b) the car actually require?

15) The speed v of a body is given by the equation v At 3  Bt where t is time. What are the
dimensions of A and B?

16) With help of dimension analysis, find a formula for the rate of flow (Q) of a fluid through a
§ 'P ·
pipe in terms of the liquid viscosityK , the pressure gradient in the pipe per unit length ¨ ¸
© l ¹
and their radius (r) of the pipe.
z
§ 'P ·
(Hints: the formula will be in this form : Q kK x r y ¨ ¸
© l ¹

S. Jean de la Croix, PHY 5113 Physics for Engineers I, Tutorial 1, UR-CST, 2014-2015 Page 3
 'v
The viscosity of the liquid η, the force F, the surface area A and the velocity gradient 'x
'v
F KA
are related by 'x )
17) Give the period (T) of the revolution of the earth around the sun if the sun’s
mass M s 2 u1030 kg , the mean distance (r) from the earth to the sun r 1.5 u1011 m and
Newton’s gravitational constant G 
6.67 u 10 11 m 3 s 2 kg 
(Hints: T kG M r where k is a dimensionless constant ( k
x
s
y z
2S ))

18) An engineer in agronomics wants to determine the density of U of a spherical watermelon .Firstly, he
measures the diameter and he finds 10cm with an uncertainty of 2 10 mm. Secondly, he measures the
mass of the sphere and he finds M 3041g with an uncertainty of 1g. Calculate the value of U and
determine the corresponding uncertainty.

19) (a) What is the sum of the following four vectors in unit vector notation? For that sum, what
are (b) the magnitude, (c) the angle in degrees, and (d) the angle in radians?
E : 6.00m at  0.900rad F : 5.00m at  75.0 0
G : 4.00m at  1.20rad H : 6.00m at  210 0

20) Define direction cosines of a vector. If l1 ,m1,n1 and l2,m2,n2 are the direction cosines of two vectors
show that the angle T between them is given by
cos T l1l2  m1m2  n1n2 .

21) If vector A i  2 j  2k , B 2i  j  k and C i  3 j  2k find the magnitude and direction

cosines of the vector R A B C .
22) Two sides of a triangle are formed by vectors A 3i  6 j  2k and B 4i  j  3k . Determine
all the angles of the triangle.

23) A particle moves from a point (3, -4, -2) m to a point (-2, 3, 5)m under influence of a force
F (2i  3 j  4k ) Newton. Calculate the work done by the force.

24) The diagonals of a parallelogram are given by vectors (3i  j  2k ) and (i  3 j  4k ) . Find the
area of the parallelogram.

25) What is the unit vector perpendicular to both

vectors A and B where A 2i  j  k and B 3i  4 j  k ? Calculate the sine of the angle between
them.

S. Jean de la Croix, PHY 5113 Physics for Engineers I, Tutorial 1, UR-CST, 2014-2015 Page 4
26) The motion of a particle is described by the equations x 4 sin 2t , y 4 cos 2t , z 6t. Find velocity
and acceleration of the particle.

27) A farm land located on a hill has triangular shape of corners A(1,1,0), B(0,2,4) and C(-1,-1,1).(Values
given in hundreds of meters). Find the area of the farmland and express the result in hectares.

28) A farmer owns a silo full of crop of wheat. The shape of the silo is a parallelepiped constructed on
points A(1,0,0), B(0,1,1),C(4,2,0) and D(5,3,4).(the unit is the meter). Find the total volume of wheat
harvested.

29) In figure 1.2, a ball of mass M hangs from a short cord that is tied to the wall via cord ab and to the
ceiling via cord bc.

The system in diagram above is in equilibrium. The angles are

T 600 and D 700 , and the ball mass M 2.0kg . What is the tension in (a) string ab
and (b) string bc?

30) In figure 1.3 below, a package of mass m hangs from a short cord that is tied to the wall via cord 1
and to the ceiling via cord 2. Cord 1 is at angle I 400 with the horizontal; cord 2 is at angle T . (a) For
what value of T is the tension in cord 2 minimized? (b) In terms of mg, what is the minimum tension in
cord 2?

S. Jean de la Croix, PHY 5113 Physics for Engineers I, Tutorial 1, UR-CST, 2014-2015 Page 5
S. Jean de la Croix, PHY 5113 Physics for Engineers I, Tutorial 1, UR-CST, 2014-2015 Page 6