Which of the following would be considered basic science questions?
a. how can cars be made safer?
b. what is the best way to improve a gas engine?
c. why do many birds have colorful feathers?
d. what are the stages in the life cycle of a star?

Aboxcar traveling at 12 m/s approaches a string of 5 identical boxcars sitting stationary on the track. the moving boxcar collides and links with the stationary cars and they all move off together along the track. what is the final speed of the cars immediately after the collision? (you may take the mass of each boxcar to be 18,537 kg.)

Suppose that an electromagnetic wave which is linearly polarized along the x−axis is propagating in vacuum along the z−axis. the wave is incident on a conductor which is placed at z > 0 region of the space. the conductor has conductivity σ, magnetic permeability µ and electric permittivity ε. (a) find the characteristic time for the free charge density which dissipates at the conductor. (b) write the maxwell equations and derive the wave equation for a plane wave propagating in a conductor. (c) find the attenuation distance at which the incident amplitude reduces to e ^−1 of its initial value. (d) find the electric and magnetic fields inside the conductor. 8 (e) find the power loss per area of the incident electromagnetic wave at the surface of conductor.

Three different objects, all with different masses, are initially at rest at the bottom of a set of steps. each step is of uniform height . the mass of each object is a multiple of the base mass : object 1 has mass 4..00m , object 2 has mass 1..96m , and object 3 has mass . when the objects are at the bottom of the steps, define the total gravitational potential energy of the three-object system to be zero. if the objects are then relocated as shown, what is the new total potential energy of the system? each answer requires the numerical coefficient to an algebraic expression. each algebraic expression is given using some combination of the variables , , and , where is the acceleration due to gravity. enter only the numerical coefficient. (example: if the answer is 1..23mgd , just enter 1.23)