Physics 1060 - Spring 2014 - Final Exam - Posted Version

A microwave oven's cooking chamber has 6 sides. What are those sides made of?

When you plug your laptop charger into a household electric outlet, the two metal blades of its plug connect with the two slots in the outlet and the laptop starts charging. What is happening at those two connections?

Why do optical drives use laser light rather than LED light to read CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray disks?

You examine a collection of neutral atoms and pick one at random. The nucleus of that atom contains 12 protons and 14 neutrons. How many electrons does that atom have?

When a beam of sunlight passes through a crystal chandelier, the thousands of cut crystals redirect some of that light around the room. When that redirected light illuminates walls, ceiling, or floor, it often appears as sweeps of color, like part of a rainbow. What effect has separated the white light into its constituent colors?

Suppose both coils of an ordinary transformer are carrying constant electric currents. Why can't the transformer transfer electric power from one coil to the other?

A uranium-235 nucleus has 92 protons and a radioactive half-life of 700 million years. If protons lost their positive charge and became electrically neutral, the radioactive decay of a uranium-235 nucleus would

Low-pressure sodium discharge lamps are exceptionally energy efficient, but emit a pure yellow light that is unpleasant for most illuminating applications. Why do high-pressure sodium discharge lamps emit a richer spectrum of light with a less discernable yellowness?

What produces the red light in a true neon lamp, a lamp in which an electric current is flowing through neon gas inside a glass tube?

As you talk on your cellphone, an electric current flows from the positive terminal of the phone's battery, through a metal wire, to the positive terminal of the phone's electronics. Compare the voltage at the battery's positive terminal to the voltage at the electronics' positive terminal.

You are walking while texting and accidently collide with a big tree. Fortunately, you are wearing your new Spring outfit (sorry... old joke) and you bounce backwards from the tree at almost the same speed you had before hitting it. Only your pride is injured. During that bounce, you transferred

The middle-portion or "channel" of an n-channel MOSFET transistor is made from semiconductor that has been chemically doped to be p-type semiconductor. While current is flowing through the MOSFET, however, its channel is n-type semiconductor. What has caused the channel to change from p-type to n-type semiconductor?

You are using a Pyrex (cooking glass) mug to remove cooking oil from a deep-fat fryer. You notice that while the mug is immersed in the cooking oil, the mug's surfaces become invisible and you cannot see the mug at all. Compare the speeds at which light travels in Pyrex and cooking oil.

A spaghetti-like filament of clear plastic can act as an optical fiber, despite having no cladding layer around its simple, single-plastic core. When that filament is suspended in air, much of the light entering one end of the plastic filament will travel through the filament to its opposite end, even if that filament has some bends in it. Suppose the plastic's index of refraction is exactly equal to that of water. How would immersing the middle of that filament in very pure water affect its performance as an optical fiber?

Suppose a camera's lens is made from a single piece of glass and it is used to photograph a white square against a black background. When you look closely at that photograph, you will see rainbow-like color patterns at the edges of the square. What causes those rainbow patterns?

At the heart of a functioning laser is a substance with extra energy in it. Suppose the laser is designed to produce red light of a specific frequency. If a single photon of light at that frequency were to enter the energy-rich substance, what would happen?

During your semester abroad, you purchase a hair appliance designed to operate on 240-volt electric power. Its heating element is an electrical resistor, with a behavior that is accurately described by Ohm's law. When supplied with 240-volt electric power, a current of 5 amperes flows through the heating element and it consumes 1200 watts of electric power. When you supply it with 120-volt electric power upon your return to the United States, what happens?

The electrons in a particular solid material fill all the levels (quantum standing waves) in the material's lowest-energy bands, but the highest-energy non-empty band is only half filled. In other words, the Fermi level in this material is in the middle of a band. This material is

The f-number of a camera lens is the ratio of its focal length to its diameter (f-number = focal length / diameter). As the f-number of a lens decreases, the brightness of the real image

While shopping for fluorescent lamps at the hardware store, you notice that you can purchase a 5000K (5000 kelvin) lamp that imitates sunlight or a 3000K lamp that imitates incandescent lighting (old-fashioned lightbulbs). What is the primary difference in those two fluorescent lamps?

Of the following types of electromagnetic waves, the type that has the highest energy per photon is

When a p-type semiconductor touches an n-type semiconductor, a pn-junction forms. What interesting behavior does this two-part semiconductor device exhibit?

The transformer in a lighting system has 120 turns in its primary coil and 20 turns in its secondary coil. With 120 volt AC power connected to the primary coil and a current of 1 ampere flowing through that primary coil, the transformer's secondary coil is supplying

Why does an LED that emits blue light require a larger voltage drop than an LED that emits red light?

Liquid water heats very effectively in a microwave oven because each water molecules has

When illuminated by sunlight, a soap bubble often displays colored patches. What causes those colored patches?

A vinyl phonograph record represents a sound's air-pressure fluctuations as depth fluctuations in its spiral groove. What category of representation is the phonograph record using?

Early telegraph messages were sent using Morse code, simple patterns of long and short clicks that represented letters and numbers. For example, the three letters "SOS" are represented by short-short-short (pause) long-long-long (pause) short-short-short. What category of representation is Morse code using?

You are riding a bus uphill to a mountaintop resort and the bus is presently driving uphill at constant velocity toward the resort. In which direction is the bus pushing you?

An electromagnet is a coil of wire that uses electricity to produce a magnetic field. What is it about electricity that produces that magnetic field?

On a clear day, the sky appears blue because some visible light from the sun experiences Rayleigh scattering. But sunlight also contains infrared light (longer wavelength than red) and ultraviolet light (shorter wavelength than violet). Along with the blue light, does the sky also scatter much infrared and/or ultraviolet light?

Two identical children run along a horizontal platform side by side and jump into a swimming pool at the same moment. They both jump equally hard, but one child jumps upward while the other child jumps forward. You watch them fall and see that

You have a charged ball, a neutral metal plate, and a neutral glass plate. If you bring a charged balloon very near each of these three objects and release the balloon, which objects will cause the balloon to accelerate? [Neglect effects due to air and gravity.]

Your local football stadium is illuminated primarily by high-pressure mercury discharge lamps. A brief power outage occurs during a game and all the lights in the stadium go out. The power recovers in a second or two, but the mercury discharge lamps remain off for more than a minute and take several additional minutes to return to full brightness. Why?

Zoom lenses are handy for casual photographs, but prime (non-zooming) lenses produce more perfect images. A wide-angle prime lens is designed to capture the entire width of the scene in front of you, whereas a telephoto prime lens is designed to expand a narrow portion of the scene to fill the entire photographic frame. How must these two lenses differ?

During spring break, you purchased a refrigerator magnet shaped like your favorite beverage container. It is a ceramic magnetic with one north pole and one south pole. Unfortunately, you drop the magnet on the sidewalk and it smashes into three pieces: small, medium, and large. Which piece has the largest net magnetic pole?

When the gate of a MOSFET transistor is uncharged, the transistor has a vast depletion region between its two electrical ends, its "source" and its "drain." While the gate remains uncharged, in which direction(s) can current flow between the source and drain?

Uranium-235 atoms and uranium-238 atoms cannot be separated using chemical techniques because the two atoms have the same chemical behavior. How do those two atoms differ?

A 10K running race has just started and you are accelerating forward on level ground. What frictional forces are being exerted between your shoes and the ground?

You are boating on a vast lake and listening to an AM radio station. You can see the station's vertical transmitting antenna on the shore, directly to your west. As that station's radio wave passes by you, its electric field points

In the fission chain reaction responsible for a nuclear explosion, which particles emerging from shattered nuclei are responsible for causing subsequent fissions?

When light that had been traveling through empty space enters a gas, the light slows down slightly. What characteristic of the gas is responsible for slowing the light?

The Pauli Exclusion Principle observes that two indistinguishable electrons can never be in the same quantum wave. Suppose that the Pauli Exclusion Principle did not apply in Universe Q. How would the atoms there be structured?

A toy top had been free of external torques, but you now exert a torque on that top. The top now exerts an equal but oppositely directed torque on you. How does the top now move?

You are watching a baseball game. The outfielder throws the baseball in a long, smooth arc to the catcher, who tags a runner out near home plate. While the baseball was traveling in its arc and no one was touching it, when was the baseball's speed slowest? [Neglect effects due to air.]

The positive terminal and negative terminal of a common 9 volt battery are about 1/4 inch apart on the top of the battery. In keeping with its name, the battery's positive terminal has a voltage that is 9 volts greater than the voltage of its negative terminal. Midway between those two terminals, the electric field

Laser pointers come in a variety of colors, including green, red, and violet. Why are there no white laser pointers?

You push two coins off a horizontal table simultaneously, a US quarter (big coin) and US dime (little coin). They had been side-by-side and motionless near the edge of the table and you push them equally hard for equal times. Off they go! Which of the following choices correctly describes what happens to the coins?

To read information on an optical disk, an optical disk player sends its laser beam through a converging lens that focuses the beam to a very small spot. To obtain the smallest possible spot, the diameter of the laser beam entering the lens should be

You have two identical electric space heaters, both of which are plugged into the same electrical outlet of your home. It's a cold winter day and you turn on one of the heaters. A current of 8 amperes flows through the wires of your home (to provide power to the heater) and wastes 1 watt in those wires. When you turn on the second heater, a current of

Heavy rains and mudslides undermined the local bowling center and it has tilted so that the left side of each bowling alley is slightly lower than the right side. When you roll a bowling ball down one of these tilted alleys, how does that ball move? [Neglect effects due to friction.]

The power outlet in your room supplies 120 volt alternating current. That outlet has two metal slots through which power is provided. One slot is longer than the other. Which of the following statements is true about those two metal slots?

Mixtures of the primary colors of light can cause your eye to see all possible colors. What are the primary colors of light?

The current passing through a metal wire is proportional to

You are playing on a trampoline. At this moment, you are pushing downward on the trampoline's surface with a force that is greater in amount than your weight. What is happening to you?

You are lifting free weights at the gym. You raise a weight slowly upward at constant velocity, hold it motionless for a second, and then lower the weight slowly downward at constant velocity. When during this three-step sequence are you doing work on the weight?

In which situation would a charged metal ball emit an electromagnetic wave?

You throw an apple straight up and it rises for 2 seconds before reaching its peak height, approximately 20 meters above your hands. At what time was the apple 10 meters above your hands?

If you hold your camera too close to your subject, the camera will be unable to take a sharp photograph of that subject. Why can't the camera focus on objects that are too close to its lens?

You leave a thick metal spoon with no sharp edges in your ceramic coffee mug as you reheat the coffee in the microwave oven. While the microwave oven is operating, the spoon