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Equation Of Shm

Mediumphysics

A vibrating reed in a music box follows the displacement law x equals 0.05 sin of the quantity 20 pi t, in SI units. What is the maximum speed attained by the tip of the reed?

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About This Question

Subject
physics
Chapter
oscillations and waves
Topic
equation of shm
Difficulty
Medium
Year
2025
Tags
SHM equationmaximum velocityangular frequencyamplitudetime derivative

Solution

Correct Answer:

For a body in SHM written as , the velocity is the time derivative , so its maximum magnitude is , occurring as the body sweeps through the mean position. The velocity leads the displacement by a quarter of a period in phase, reaching its peak exactly when the displacement passes through zero. Reading the given equation, the amplitude is and the angular frequency is . Multiplying gives . The choice wrongly doubles the result, perhaps by misreading the amplitude as . The choice forgets to include the factor of 20 from the angular frequency. The choice uses only and ignores the amplitude entirely, which is dimensionally the angular frequency, not a speed in this product. This is the standard NCERT result linking maximum velocity to the product of amplitude and angular frequency. As a sanity check, the maximum speed must be finite and proportional to both how far and how fast the reed swings, and is physically reasonable for a small rapidly vibrating reed.

This medium difficulty physics question is from the chapter oscillations and waves, covering the topic of equation of shm. It appeared in the 2025 exam.

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