Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Two vectors have magnitudes 2 m and 3m. The angle between them is 60°. Find (a) the scalar product of the two vectors, (b) the magnitude of their vector product.
Advertisements
Solution
Let the two vectors be \[\left| \vec{a} \right| = 2 m\text { and } \left| \vec{b} \right| = 3 m\].
Angle between the vectors, θ = 60°
(a) The scalar product of two vectors is given by \[\vec{a} . \vec{b} = \left| \vec{a} \right| . \left| \vec{b} \right| \cos\theta^\circ\]
∴ \[\vec{a} . \vec{b} = \left| \vec{a} \right| . \left| \vec{b} \right| \cos 60^\circ\]
\[= 2 \times 3 \times \frac{1}{2} = 3 m^2\]
(b) The vector product of two vectors is given by \[\left| \vec{a} \times \vec{b} \right| = \left| \vec{a} \right| \left| \vec{a} \right| \sin\theta^\circ\].
\[= 2 \times 3 \times \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\]
\[ = 3\sqrt{3} m^2\]
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
India has had a long and unbroken tradition of great scholarship — in mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, logic and ethics. Yet, in parallel with this, several superstitious and obscurantistic attitudes and practices flourished in our society and unfortunately continue even today — among many educated people too. How will you use your knowledge of science to develop strategies to counter these attitudes ?
“It is more important to have beauty in the equations of physics than to have them agree with experiments”. The great British physicist P. A. M. Dirac held this view. Criticize this statement. Look out for some equations and results in this book which strike you as beautiful.
Suggest a way to measure the thickness of a sheet of paper.
Suppose a quantity x can be dimensionally represented in terms of M, L and T, that is, `[ x ] = M^a L^b T^c`. The quantity mass
Find the dimensions of frequency .
Let I = current through a conductor, R = its resistance and V = potential difference across its ends. According to Ohm's law, product of two of these quantities equals the third. Obtain Ohm's law from dimensional analysis. Dimensional formulae for R and V are \[{\text{ML}}^2 \text{I}^{- 2} \text{T}^{- 3}\] and \[{\text{ML}}^2 \text{T}^{- 3} \text{I}^{- 1}\] respectively.
Can you add three unit vectors to get a unit vector? Does your answer change if two unit vectors are along the coordinate axes?
Is the vector sum of the unit vectors \[\vec{i}\] and \[\vec{i}\] a unit vector? If no, can you multiply this sum by a scalar number to get a unit vector?
Let \[\vec{A} = 3 \vec{i} + 4 \vec{j}\]. Write a vector \[\vec{B}\] such that \[\vec{A} \neq \vec{B}\], but A = B.
The resultant of \[\vec{A} \text { and } \vec{B}\] makes an angle α with \[\vec{A}\] and β with \[\vec{B}\],
Let \[\vec{a} = 4 \vec{i} + 3 \vec{j} \text { and } \vec{b} = 3 \vec{i} + 4 \vec{j}\]. Find the magnitudes of (a) \[\vec{a}\] , (b) \[\vec{b}\] ,(c) \[\vec{a} + \vec{b} \text { and }\] (d) \[\vec{a} - \vec{b}\].
A mosquito net over a 7 ft × 4 ft bed is 3 ft high. The net has a hole at one corner of the bed through which a mosquito enters the net. It flies and sits at the diagonally opposite upper corner of the net. (a) Find the magnitude of the displacement of the mosquito. (b) Taking the hole as the origin, the length of the bed as the X-axis, it width as the Y axis, and vertically up as the Z-axis, write the components of the displacement vector.
Let A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A1 be a regular hexagon. Write the x-components of the vectors represented by the six sides taken in order. Use the fact the resultant of these six vectors is zero, to prove that
cos 0 + cos π/3 + cos 2π/3 + cos 3π/3 + cos 4π/3 + cos 5π/3 = 0.
Use the known cosine values to verify the result.

If \[\vec{A} = 2 \vec{i} + 3 \vec{j} + 4 \vec{k} \text { and } \vec{B} = 4 \vec{i} + 3 \vec{j} + 2 \vec{k}\] find \[\vec{A} \times \vec{B}\].
If \[\vec{A} , \vec{B} , \vec{C}\] are mutually perpendicular, show that \[\vec{C} \times \left( \vec{A} \times \vec{B} \right) = 0\] Is the converse true?
Draw a graph from the following data. Draw tangents at x = 2, 4, 6 and 8. Find the slopes of these tangents. Verify that the curve draw is y = 2x2 and the slope of tangent is \[\tan \theta = \frac{dy}{dx} = 4x\]
\[\begin{array}x & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 & 9 & 10 \\ y & 2 & 8 & 18 & 32 & 50 & 72 & 98 & 128 & 162 & 200\end{array}\]
Round the following numbers to 2 significant digits.
(a) 3472, (b) 84.16. (c)2.55 and (d) 28.5
