PHYSICS 108

Section 2
Fall 2006

Harry D. Downing

Professor and Chair

Department of
Physics and Astronomy
Touch Me
 Let’s visit the web
for course information.

Downing’s PHY 108 Home Page

physics.sfasu.edu
Introduction
Syllabus

Attendance and Homework

Ingredients for a good grade
An “A” earns a $50 scholarship.
Homework Format
Cover Page

NAME
PHY 108.002
Date
Problems
Grade
Cover Page,
Example

Harry Downing
PHY 108.002
9-1-04
Ch 1 – 2, 6, 9, 16
Grade 5, 4, 5, 3

Pass out some example

engineering pad paper
Name Problem #
What are the x and y components of the force
shown? y y

 F  500 N
F  500 N
20 0  20 0

Fy
 
x  x
Fx

F  Fx iˆ  Fy ˆj
Fx  F cos θ Fy  F sin θ
Fx  F cos( 90 0  20 0 ) Fy  F sin( 90 0  20 0 )
Fx  F sin 20 0 Fy  F cos 20 0
Fx  171.0 N Fy  470 N
 Funny Math
13
a c a c
13  
13 13 b d b d
7 28
13 7
13 21
V  IR V
13
13 V V I R
I  R 
28 R I
Funny Math

14
 0 ???
29
Mystery of Orbiter Crash Solved
By Kathy Sawyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 1, 1999; Page A1
NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was lost in space
last week because engineers failed to make a
simple conversion from English units to metric,
an embarrassing lapse that sent the $125 million
craft fatally close to the Martian surface,
investigators said yesterday. Officials are
scrambling to determine whether a similar error
is buried in the computer files of two other
spacecraft currently cruising through space: the
Mars Polar Lander, scheduled to hit the Martian
surface on Dec. 3, and the Stardust craft bound
for a comet.
It now appears the error had affected the
orbiter mission from its launching almost 10
months and 416 million miles before its Sept.
23 failure. And yet the problem was never
caught and corrected by the system of checks
and balances at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) in California, which manages this and
numerous other interplanetary missions for
NASA.
Be very, very careful what you put into
that head,
because you will never, ever get it out.
Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530)
 Chapter 1
Speed, Displacement, Velocity:
An Introduction to Vectors
 Imagine that you have a map that leads
you to a buried treasure.
 This map has instructions such as
15 paces to the north
of the skull.
 The 15 paces is N

a distance and
north is a direction.
 A SCALAR QUANTITY
 A quantity that has nothing to do with
spatial direction.
 Examples of scalars in physics are
mass time
distance or length density
work energy
temperature charge
 DISTANCE (l)
 A distance traveled, a path length, etc.
 AVERAGE SPEED

Average Speed =
distance/time
Units - m/s, ft/s, etc.
 Speeding Little Old Lady
Sorry, Ma’am, but you
were doing 45 mph in a
30 mph zone.

Okay,But I haven’t
okay, would
you driven
believe45
that I
miles
haven’t yet.driving
been
for an hour yet?
 Example of Average Speed
30 mph
A B
2 miles

?
 You take a trip from A to B and back to A.
 You want to average 60 mph for the round
trip A to B to A.

From A to B you average 30 mph.

What is your average speed on the return trip from B to A?
Average Speed

vav  l
t

v  l
t
av
INSTANTANEOUS SPEED

Instantaneous Speed is the

speed you would read from a
speedometer.
 v  lim l  dl
t 0
t dt

Slope of a distance versus time curve

 A VECTOR QUANTITY

 A quantity that can be specified

completely only if we provide both
its magnitude (size) and direction.
 Examples of vectors in physics are

displacement velocity
acceleration force
momentum angular momentum
 The math associated with scalars is
familiar to everyone.
 The math associated with vectors is
more involved.
 THE DISPLACEMENT

When an object moves from one point in

space to another, the displacement is the
vector from the initial location to the
final location. It is independent of the
actual distance traveled.
 VELOCITY

 Average Velocity = Displacement/time

Units - m/s, ft/s, etc.
 Instantaneous Velocity of an object is
its instantaneous speed plus the
direction it is traveling.
 Velocity is a vector.
 Displacement and Average
Velocity
Distance traveled is the length of the path
taken.


s
s  Displacement
 s
Average velocity = vav 
t
Average Velocity

 
vav  s
t
INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY

  
v  lim s  ds
t 0
t dt
 THE ADDITION OF VECTORS

The resultant is the sum of a number

of vectors of a particular type.
Example: Force Vectors
Displacement Vectors
 THE TIP-TO-TAIL
(OR POLYGON) METHOD

 Let’s use a treasure map again as an

example of the addition of vectors.
 Let’s imagine the instructions tell you to
go 4 miles east then 3 miles north.
 5 miles

3 miles

36.90
4 miles
 In this case you could have gone 3
miles north first and then 4 miles
east next and still end up at the same
location.
 Your final position is 5 miles at 36.90
north of east.
 It would have saved time if that had
been the one distance and one
direction traveled in the first place.
 We say that the 5 miles at 36.90
north of east is the vector sum of the
4 miles east vector and the 3 miles
north vector.
 The order of the addition does not
matter.
 Examples of addition of vectors
follows. The method used will be the
head-to-tail.
 
F3  2 N @ 210
N
0


F2  1 N @ 60 0


F1  3 N @ 45 0

W E
   
R  F31  F22  F31

R  2.18 N @ 65.9 0

S
 N

900

Resultant

W 1800 00 E
 Equilibrant
  
R  F1  F2  F3

R  2.18 N @ 65.9 0
2700

S
PARALLELOGRAM METHOD


 R
B

A
PARALLELOGRAM METHOD


R

B 
A
SUBTRACTION OF VECTORS
 
B A 
R


B

  
R  A B
THE TRIGONOMETRIC
FUNCTIONS

use
ot en
hy p
C
opposite-
B

adjacent-
A
 use
en
opposite
p
sin hyot
 B
C
C
hypotenuse opposite-
B
 adjacent
cos   adjacent- A
hypotenuse C
A
opposite B
tan   
adjacent A
 use
ot en
hy p
C
opposite-
B

adjacent-
A

B A
sin   cos   ( )  ( ) 
2 2 2 2 B 2
 A 2
C 2
 2 1
C C C 2
C

sin   cos   1
2 2

B  C sin  A  C cos  B  Atan 

A COMPONENT OF A VECTOR


R

Ry

 x
Rx
    
Rx  R cos  Ry  R sin 

Rx  R cos  Ry  R sin 
y


R

Ry

 x
Rx
 COMPONENT METHOD FOR
ADDING VECTORS
 Resolve each vector into components along the axes
used.
Remember that components along the negative
direction of an axis will be considered negative in the
following additions.
 Add all the x-components together.
 This will be Rx
 Add all the y-components together.
 This will b Ry
 Add all the z-components together.
 This will be R
z
 Then
Ry
R  Rx  Ry  Rz
2 2 2
tan  
Rx
 z

Rz

R


Ry
y

Rx

x
 y


R1
 R1 y
R2
R2 y
x
R2 x R1 x
 UNIT VECTORS
y


R
 
Ry  RyRĵy
ĵ
 x
ˆ
i Rx  Rxˆ
i Consider a vector that
In general a vector has components has unit length along
along
Then
The y-component
the x-component
of R becomes
of R becomes the y-axis
x-axis direction.
three mutually perpendicular axes (a k unit
vector along the z-axis direction) andCall it the ji unit
unit vector.
vector.
 as
thus can be written
R  Rxˆ
i  Ry ĵ  Rz k̂