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=
(The dimensions of G are somewhat subtle: from the numerical value of
2 2 11
kg / Nm 10 67 . 6
and using
2
m/s kg N = , we obtain a result in terms of kg, m, and s
that can be translated to m, l, and t.) Setting up the equations for each dimension:
d b t
d b l
b a m
=
+ =
=
2 0
3 1
0
This system is most easily solved by adding the last two equations, so as to cancel d and
isolate b, after which the other two unknowns are quickly found:
2
1
1
=
+ =
+ =
d
b
a
This tells us that
2
c
kMG
R =
As before, the method of dimensional analysis will not tell us anything about the
dimensionless constant k. While this technically means that k could be anything, the true
value of k is determined by the details of an explicit derivation of the equation. Many
physics equations dont contain too many numerical factors, other than the occasional 2
or , so we arent likely to make too much of a mistake in estimating k if we were to
guess that . 1 = k This allows us to pin down an estimate for R:
mm 4 m 004 . 0
) m/s 10 3 (
) kg / Nm 10 67 . 6 )( kg 10 6 (
2 8
2 2 11 24
2
= =
= =
c
MG
R
In other words, if the Earth were compressed down to the size of a pea, it is roughly here
that it would become a black hole. This estimate turns out to be quite close, as an explicit
calculation indicates that 2 = k .
Example 3:
Now lets turn to a problem in projectile motion. Suppose that a ball is thrown with an
initial speed of
0
v , at angle of above the horizontal, and from a height h above the
ground. Our objective will be to determine how far, R, the ball travels in the horizontal
direction before it hits the ground. A good sketch is never a bad idea for problem
solving, so lets start with that:
5
Now lets try to work out a formula for R. Sounds like a job for dimensional analysis,
right? Not so fast. First of all, dimensional analysis wont tell us the difference between
sin and cos , and this would seem to be an important aspect of the equation so that we
can see which angles lead to the furthest throws. More importantly, dimensional analysis
isnt going to work very well. While we have three dimensionful parameters upon which
we expect R to depend (
0
v , h, and the acceleration due to gravity, g), just as in the two
previous examples, we have no mass-dependence in any of these parameters. This means
that dimensional analysis will only give us constraints on length and time. Two
equations is not sufficient to determine three unknowns, therefore we will not obtain a
unique equation for R. Oh well, at least it didnt take much of our time to rule out a
method which might have saved us a lot of time.
Solving for R is a fairly straightforward exercise in two-dimensional kinematics. We
separate the motion into horizontal and vertical components. The latter will tell us how
much time, T, the ball spends in the air:
2
2
1
0
2
2
1
0
2
2
1
0 0
sin 0
sin
) (
gT T v h
gt t v h
t a t v y t y
y y
+ =
+ =
+ + =
Solving the quadratic equation for T,
|
|
.
|
\
|
+ + =
+
=
2 2
0
0
2 2
0 0
sin
2
1 1
sin
2 sin sin
v
gh
g
v
g
gh v v
T
The horizontal component of the motion then tells us how far the ball travels before it
lands:
0
v
h
R
6
t v
t v x t x
x
cos 0
) (
0
0 0
+ =
+ =
|
|
.
|
\
|
+ + =
2 2
0
2
0
sin
2
1 1 cos sin
v
gh
g
v
R
This is somewhat complicated. While I know its correct, if only because this equation
appeared in a recent Fox Trot cartoon, this might not necessarily be obvious to everyone
else. Besides reading a lot of cartoons, what else might we do to check an equation like
this? Well, the most important thing is to confirm that the dimensions work out. On the
right-hand side, the
2
0
/ v gh factor in the square root is dimensionless, and this fits with the
1 to which it is added. The overall dimension on the right-hand side comes from
g v /
2
0
, which works out to be a length, in perfect agreement with the left-hand side. The
next thing that Im going to suggest that we do is to see how the equation depends on
various parameters.
Lets start with . When 0 = , i.e., the ball is thrown horizontally, it looks like we are
dividing by zero in the square root. It turns out that the sin factor at the front will
prevent this from being a problem, but the details are not obvious. Instead, suppose
= 90 , i.e., the ball is thrown vertically. No matter how fast the ball is thrown, its
going to land right where it started and this is caused by the cos factor in the equation
since 0 90 cos = .
Now lets look at
0
v . The faster we throw the ball, the farther it should go, and it is clear
that our equation has this property.
Suppose that we did this on the Moon, where g is about six times smaller than on Earth.
Our equation suggests that R should increase when g is decreased, and this was
confirmed experimentally in 1971 when an Apollo 14 astronaut smuggled a six-iron with
him on a lunar mission and was able to hit a golf ball about 300 yards; even without the
constrictions of a space-suit, this same shot would travel about half that distance on
Earth.
Now lets look at h. You would expect that the larger the value of h, the farther the ball
will go with the same values of the other parameters. h only appears once in the equation
and it is clear that as h increases, so does R. Now lets see what happens when 0 = h ,
corresponding to a throw from ground level.
( ) 2 sin cos sin
2
0 1 1 cos sin ) 0 (
2
0
2
0
2
0
g
v
g
v
g
v
h R = = + + = =
This is a much simpler expression. It indicates, among other things, that the ball should
be thrown at a 45 degree angle in order to maximize the distance traveled, since the sine
of 90 degrees equals one and this maximum corresponds to 2 . On the other hand,
suppose that h is so large that the ratio
2
0
) sin /( 2 v gh is much larger than one. This
means that we can ignore the two 1 terms in the main expression for R, leading to
7
g
h
v h R
2
cos ) large very (
0
This expression indicates that the distance will be maximized when cos takes on its
maximum value, and this happens when the angle is zero, i.e., the ball is thrown
horizontally. Think, for instance, about throwing your ball from the top of a skyscraper;
its going to be in the air for quite a while, so theres no point throwing it with an
upwards angle if its going to cost you some forward velocity.
This takes care of the extreme cases for h: either h is zero or h is extremely large. What
if its somewhere in between? Of course, the main formula will work for any h, but
perhaps theres a way to simplify it. Suppose, for example, that h is small but not zero.
This suggests that
) ( 1
sin
2
1
2 2
0
h
v
gh
+ = +
where ) (h is much less than one but not zero, and it depends on h. How could we
determine ) (h ?
Consider the following simple algebraic identities:
( )
( )
( )
4 3 2 4
3 2 3
2 2
4 6 4 1 1
3 3 1 1
2 1 1
x x x x x
x x x x
x x x
+ + + + = +
+ + + = +
+ + = +
If x is much less than one then
2
x is smaller still and it might not be a bad approximation
to ignore it (and even higher powers of x) altogether. This leads to
( )
( )
( ) x x
x x
x x
4 1 1
3 1 1
2 1 1
4
3
2
+ +
+ +
+ +
The pattern is obvious:
( ) 1 for 1 1 << + + x nx x
n
It turns out that this approximation is valid for any value of n, not just whole numbers.
This is known as the binomial approximation.
Returning to our projectile motion problem with a small, nonzero initial height, we see
that
2
1
2 2
0
2 2
0
and
sin
2
sin
2
1 = = + n
v
gh
x
v
gh
Applying the binomial approximation, we then find that
2 2
0
2 2
0
sin
1
sin
2
1
v
gh
v
gh
+ +
and consequently,
8
tan
sin
cos
cos sin
2
sin
1 1 cos sin ) small (
0
2
0
2 2
0
2
0
h
R
h
g
v
v
gh
g
v
h R
+ =
+ =
|
|
.
|
\
|
+ + =
In the last line,
0
R is the 0 = h result we found earlier, so that we can see just how much
further the throw travels when h is slightly larger than zero. Dont worry about tan
being zero for a horizontal throw (which would seem to have us dividing by zero)
because the specific condition of our approximation was that x is small, not that h by
itself is small. In our case
1
sin
2
2 2
0
<< =
v
gh
x
This condition will not hold for small values of , therefore we can conclude that the
tan / h term will indeed be a small correction to
0
R . It is often useful to create these
sorts of two term approximations in physics: the first term represents an extreme
limiting case (in this case 0 = h ) and the second term indicates the correction to the first
term due to small deviations from the extreme limiting case.
Example 4:
As another example of the usefulness of the binomial approximation, lets examine the
tidal forces on the Earths oceans due to the gravitational forces from the Moon and Sun.
Lets start with the Moon and take its mass to be M and its distance from the center of the
Earth to be d. Denote the radius of the Earth by R and consider an object of mass m
located at various points on (or in) the Earth. An object in the center of the Earth will
feel a gravitational force towards the Moon of magnitude
2
d
GMm
F
C
=
By Newtons Second Law, ma F = , this leads to an acceleration that is independent of
the mass of the object:
2
d
GM
a
C
=
Now consider the gravitational attraction of the Moon when the object is located on the
Earths surface nearest the moon. This is a distance R closer to the Moon than before,
therefore
( )
2
R d
GM
a
N
=
Similarly, on the Earths surface furthest from the Moon,
( )
2
R d
GM
a
F
+
=
9
(The terminology here is admittedly sloppy, as an object on the surface of the Earth
accelerates toward the center of the Earth and the Moons attraction is only a tiny
correction to this. What we have calculated is really F/m , and this is only the
acceleration when there are no other forces present. This distinction has absolutely no
bearing on the argument to follow.)
The entire Earth is pulled toward the Moon with an acceleration
C
a , so when we speak of
a tidal acceleration, were really referring to the difference between the acceleration
toward the Moon at a given point and
C
a (and, as noted in the previous paragraph, these
accelerations are modifications to g). Quantitatively, the tidal acceleration on the Earths
surface nearest to the Moon is
( )
( )
( ) [ ] 1 1
1
2
2
2 2
2
2 2
=
=
=
d
R
d
R
C N
d
GM
d
GM
d
GM
d
GM
R d
GM
a a a
At this stage, since d R << , we can apply the binomial approximation:
( )
3
2
2 2
1 1
d
GMR
a
d
R
d
R
= +
You can check for yourself that
F C
a a leads to the same result. What this means is that
while basic gravitational attraction goes as
2
/ 1 d , tidal accelerations depend on
3
/ 1 d .
This extra factor of d has an important implication for tides on Earth. If we compare the
ratios
3
/ d M for the Moon and the Sun, we find
( )
17 . 2
389
10 71 . 2
1
) / (
) / (
3
7
3
Moon
Sun
Sun
Moon
Sun
3
Moon
3
=
|
.
|
\
|
=
|
|
.
|
\
|
|
|
.
|
\
|
=
d
d
M
M
d M
d M
In other words, while the Sun is about 27 million times more massive than the Moon, it is
also 389 times further from the Earth, and the third power of this factor of 389 is enough
to offset (and then some) the difference in mass. As a result, the tides on Earth are
predominantly due to the effect of the Moon and there are additional contributions from
the Sun.
Example 5:
Now lets switch gears and look at something a little bit more intuitive. Suppose that we
would like to add up the following vectors:
10
This is either going to be very obvious or quite confusing. You see, if we try to add the
vectors one at a time (tip to tail) were going to have to deal with each of the seven
vectors. It can be done, though: start with the vector in the lower left (pointing
southwest) and add the vectors in a clockwise sequence. Youll find that you trace out
seven sides of an octagon (stop sign), ending up vertically above where you started by
one vector:
The problem with this method is that it gets more and more difficult to apply when the
number of vectors increases.
Another idea would be to add the vectors algebraically. First, define a coordinate system
(say, an x-axis pointing to the right and a y-axis pointing up), then write each of the seven
vectors in terms of their x- and y-coordinates. The coordinates can be added and the
result can be reexpressed as a vector with a specific length and direction. I hope that I
dont need to work this out explicitly in order to convince you that this would be a
tedious task.
Instead, we should try to look at the original picture with a different perspective. Rather
than starting with an empty page and then adding seven different vectors, lets think
about a nice symmetric set of eight vectors that happens to be missing one member:
11
The set of eight vectors adds up to zero, since each vector cancels with another one
pointing in the opposite direction. Subtracting a vector is equivalent to flipping the
direction of the vector and adding it, therefore we see that the sum of our seven vectors is
indeed an upwards vector. The symmetry method that we used to obtain this result is
very useful, as it would work just as well if we had 999 vectors, arranged so as to be
missing one, to add.
Example 6:
Now lets make a variation of the last question. Consider 12 vectors, each of which is
pointing in the direction of a number on a clock face. If all the vectors are the same
length then the sum of these vectors is zero by symmetry. Suppose instead that the length
of each vector is proportional to the number on the clock to which it is pointing. Heres a
sketch:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
12
Our problem will be to determine the direction (but not the magnitude) of the sum of
these 12 vectors. Adding them one at a time using the tip to tail technique will lead
nowhere unless you feel like making an architectural-quality drawing. Adding them
algebraically by breaking each vector into x- and y-components will be very tedious.
Looking for a shortcut, on the other hand, is the trademark of a good problem-solver.
Heres the trick: its easy to add two vectors whenever they either point in the same
direction or when they point in opposite directions. In the context of the clock, this turns
12 different directions into 6. Vectors 1 and 7 can be combined into a single vector of
length 6 pointing towards 7 oclock. Similarly, vectors 2 and 8 add up to a vector of
length 6 pointing towards 8 oclock. In total, we can turn our original 12 vectors, each of
varying length, into 6 vectors, each of length 6, pointing towards 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12
oclock:
This is certainly simpler than what we started with, but the answer still isnt obvious. Let
us apply a second trick: if we pair the vectors pointing to 9 and 10 oclock, the sum must
point to 9:30, i.e., halfway in between. Similarly, the vectors pointing to 8 and 11
oclock will add up to point towards 9:30, as will the vectors pointing to 7 and 12. It
would require some algebra to determine the lengths of these three 9:30-pointing vectors,
but the important thing is that they all point to 9:30 and therefore the total sum of our
original 12 vectors points to 9:30.
The lesson to be taken from these last two examples is that its often not wise to use a
brute-force way to solve a problem unless you cant come up with any other approach.
Selective laziness is an important trait to have in physics because it motivates you to look
for simpler ways of doing things. Its useful to have more than one way to solve a
particular problem because it might turn out that only one of these ideas will work with a
similar problem that you encounter in the future.
Example 7:
As our last example, were going to go back to some physics; more specifically,
electricity. Ohms Law, IR V = , describes how much electrical current passes through a
resistor when a voltage is applied across it. Some clever problems can be created using
13
arrangements of multiple resistors. For example, suppose that we take six identical
resistors and arrange them in a tetrahedron. What will the effective resistance of this
object be between any two vertices? Heres a sketch:
The thick lines denote the resistors (for a 3-D effect, suppose they are viewed from
above), while the two thin lines at the bottom indicate the vertices into and out of which a
total current I can flow through the object due to an applied voltage V.
At the end of the previous example, I emphasized that it was never a bad idea to have
more than one way to solve a problem. In that spirit, before I show you a simple solution
to this problem, allow me to outline a more tedious (but no less valid) solution: suppose
that currents
1
I ,
2
I , and
3
I circulate counterclockwise through the lower, upper-right,
and upper-left sub-triangles, respectively. From the lower-left vertex to the lower-right
vertex, we have a voltage drop of V, and through the lower resistor, this leads to the
equation
( )R I I V
1
+ =
Applying Kirchhoffs voltage law to each of these triangles, we can generate three more
equations:
3 2 1
3 2 1
3 2 1
3 0
3 0
3 0
I I I
I I I
I I I I
+ =
+ =
+ =
We can use the second of these equations to solve for
3
I ) 3 (
2 1 3
I I I + = and eliminate
this variable from the other equations, leading to
2 1
2 1
8 4 0
4 4 0
I I
I I I
+ =
+ =
Then we can solve for
2
I ( 2 /
1 2
I I = ) and eliminate this variable in the first equation:
2 / ) 2 / ( 4 4 0
1 1 1
I I I I I = + =
Putting this into our very first equation, we finish with
( ) 2 / ) 2 / ( IR R I I V = + =
Interpreting this as
eff
IR V = , we find that 2 / R R
eff
= . This solution is very
straightforward in an algorithmic sense, but the computational complexity is high enough
to justify looking for an alternative approach. Think, for example, about how much
harder it would have been to find the resistance across two vertices of an octahedron
(which would have entailed solving seven linear equations in seven unknowns).
14
Instead, we shall redraw the original figure in a way which emphasizes a certain
symmetry:
What we see is that the current flowing through the tetrahedron is initially divided into
three branches at the left vertex. The top two branches are completely symmetrical,
though, which means that there is no reason why there should be more current in one of
these branches than the other (the bottom branch, on the other hand, connects directly to
the right vertex, therefore this branch is different from the top two). Similarly, the
vertical resistor which connects the top two branches cannot have any current flowing
through it, as the direction of such a current would allow us to break the symmetry
between these two branches. If there is no current flowing through this resistor, then we
wouldnt be interfering with anything if we removed this resistor completely:
This is useful because now the top branches each consist of a series of two resistors. The
resistance of a series arrangement is just the sum of the individual resistances, therefore
R
R
R R
R
R
R 2
R 2
15
Now we have a parallel arrangement of three resistances, for which the total effective
resistance is related to the reciprocal sum of the individual resistances:
2
2
1
2
1
2
1 1
R
R
R
R R R R
eff
eff
=
=
+ + =
This agrees with the result we obtained before but without the hassle of having to solve a
large set of linear equations.
Summary:
I have outlined four general techniques here that can be extremely useful for solving
physics problems:
(1) Dimensional analysis
Every equation in physics must have consistent units. This obvious but powerful
statement allows us to spot mistakes and, in some cases, to guess the correct form of an
equation based on the units of the variables it will depend on.
(2) Limiting cases of a solution
Complicated equations can often be understood (or checked) in pieces by considering the
simplifications that would result if one or more variables took on certain values (such as
zero, one, or something large enough to allow something else to be ignored). These
limiting cases are typically much more compatible with our intuition.
(3) Approximations
Often we are willing to trade an exact solution for an approximate one if it leads to a
simplification in an equation. In particular, the binomial approximation nx x
n
+ + 1 ) 1 ( ,
valid when 1 << x , is a very useful thing to know.
(4) Symmetry
Sometimes a problem looks more complicated than it needs to be. See if there is another
way to look at a problem that allows you to focus less on the distracting details and more
on the patterns into which the various pieces fit.
Problem solving is a skill that can be practiced at any stage in your physics career.
Important discoveries are often made by young scientists precisely because they
sometimes come up with creative ways to think about old problems. Not many things in
life compare to the sense of achievement and satisfaction that you can get by solving a
tricky physics problem and I hope that youll experience these feelings over and over in
the days, months, and years ahead.