An astronaut performs a simple experiment in the \"weightless\" environment of a

Question

An astronaut performs a simple
experiment in the "weightless" environment of a space station,intended
for television broadcast to elementary school classrooms aroundthe
world. By combing her hair, she is able to charge a flat comb sothat,
in the vicinity of the comb, there is an approximately uniformelectric
field of strength E = 900 N/C.
She places the comb 4.00 cm away from a clump of small paperdots,
inducing a nonuniform distribution of charge in the clump so thatone
of the dots becomes charged and breaks away, accelerating towardthe
comb. If the paper dot has a mass of 2.95×104 kgand a charge of magnitude 3.50 C,how fast is it going when it strikes the comb?

Explanation / Answer

Initial accleration of the paper = 0
Since    environment of a space station isweightless elelctric field E = 900 N / C distance S= 4 cm =0.04 m mass of paper m = 2.95 * 10 ^ -4 kg charge of paper q = 3.5 * 10 ^ -6 C force on paper due to electric field F = Eq from newton second law F = ma compare above two we get ma=Eq Or accleration of paper a = Eq / m                                      = 10.67 m / s^ 2 Initila velocity of the paper u = 0 velocity of the paper when it reaches the comb v =? from the kinematics equation v ^ 2- u^ 2= 2aS                 v^ 2= 2aS     Since u = 0                  v = [ 2aS]                    = 0.9242 m / s

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