Physics Category A

Final Round
Exam Date : 23 January 2021, Saturday
Exam Timing : 09:30 IST to 12:30 IST
 Rules and Regulations
Marking Scheme
1. The question paper contains 3 questions.
2. Each question is worth 20 points.
3. All questions are compulsory.

Miscellaneous
1. Write your solutions neatly, and submit the scanned PDF. Solutions should be brief and should contain
all the necessary details.
2. Use a good application to scan handwritten text into PDF. Kindly make sure that the answers are
legible and that your furniture or flooring is not a part of the submission.
3. Ambiguous or illegible answers will not gain credits. If you strike something out, strike it out properly
so that it is clear to the evaluator what you want to read. Please avoid overwriting your answers.
4. Answers should be your own and should reflect your independent thinking process.
5. Do NOT post the questions on any forums or discussion groups. It will result in immediate disquali-
fication of involved candidates when caught.
6. Sharing/discussion aimed towards solving or distribution of problems appearing in the contest while
the contest is live in any kind of online platform/forum shall be considered as a failure in complying
with the regulations.
7. Any form of plagiarism or failure to comply with aforementioned regulations may lead to disqualifica-
tion.

Contact details
• For subject related queries, clearly mention your category (A/B/C) in the mail or WhatsApp text.
• As our phone numbers may be busy, we prefer WhatsApp & email queries instead. Only call us if
absolutely necessary.
• For technical queries, contact:
– Amik Raj Behera: +91 81143 42726
– Aniruddhan Ganesaraman: +91 99453 28128
• For subject related queries, contact:
– Official email ID: stems21phy@gmail.com
– Prasanna Venkatesan: +91 94443 25629
– Akella Sriram: +91 79958 55349
• Your should upload the scanned PDF before 12:30 IST. If you are unable to submit the final answers,
then send an email to stems21phy@gmail.com with your answers, name, subject, category and your
registered email ID. Submissions by emails will be accepted only till 12:35 IST.
 Questions
1. (8 + 6 + 6) An electric circuit has a battery of EMF E and it is connected to a resistor system as
shown in the image below.

The resistor system alone is put in an adiabatic box (with circuit still connected) filled with ideal
gas and containing a thermally conducting plate (plate shewn below) with coefficient of areal thermal
expansion β and heat capacity c. R2 , R5 , R3 are fixed and R1 , R4 are variable. Assume temperature
change doesn’t alter any of the macroscopically noticeable attributes of the wire and resistors.

(a) Find the condition on the resistors (all of them non-zero) for which the rate thermal expansion
attains maximum.
(b) Find the equivalent resistance in such a condition described above.
(c) Draw how the plate will look like after a time t and describe its size qualitatively.(Just the shape
matters in drawing).
2. (6 + 14) A regular tetrahedral massless frame whose side length is physically variable (with the
constraint of the tetrahedron being regular) is dipped in a soap solution of surface tension T , taken
outside and allowed to settle after a little wiggle.
The soap film is formed such that there is no volume in space that is enclosed by any of the surfaces
soap film and all the soap film surfaces are planar. You may assume the configuration of the soap film
without proof.
Now 4 point charges of charge q are fixed at the vertices of the tetrahedron.
The system now sets into motion with the shape and nature of soap film being unaltered at all times.
(a) Describe the shape of the soap film you observe and your speculations on why it is formed this
way. Also shew that the area spanned by the soap film is less than the total surface area of the
tetrahedron.
(b) Find the side length of the tetrahedron for which the system attains mechanical equilibrium.

3. (16 + 4) There are two semi-infinite plane mirrors inclined physically at a non-zero angle with inner
surfaces being reflective.
(a) Prove that all lines of incident/reflected rays are tangential to a particular circle for any given
incident ray being incident on a reflective side. Assume that the incident ray lies on one of the
normal planes to the mirrors.
(b) Try to guess the radius of circle by the parameters you can observe.

All the best!