Search results

The awe‐inspiring Great Pyramid of Cheops was built more than 4500 years ago. Its square base, originally 230 m on a side, covered 13.1 acres, and it was 146 m high (H), with a mass of about 7×10^9 kg. (The pyramid’s dimensions are slightly different today due to quarrying and some sagging). Historians estimate that 20,000 workers spent 20 years to construct it, working 12-hour days, 330 days per year.

a) Calculate the gravitational potential energy stored in the pyramid, given its center of mass is at one-fourth its height.

b) Only a fraction of the workers lifted blocks; most were involved in support services such as building ramps, bringing food and water, and hauling blocks to the site. Calculate the efficiency of the workers who did the lifting, assuming there were 1000 of them and they consumed food energy at the rate of 300 Kcal/hour.

first we calculate the number of hours worked per year.

then we calculate the number of hours worked in the 20 years.

Then we calculate the energy consumed in 20 years knowing the energy consumed per hour and the total hours worked in 20 years.

The efficiency is the resulting potential energy divided by the consumed energy.

Calculate the Reynolds number N′R for a ball with a 7.40-cm diameter thrown at 40.0 m/s.

Strategy

We can use the Reynolds number equation calculate N’_R , since all values in it are either given or can be found in tables of density and viscosity.

Solution

We first find the kinematic viscosity values:

Substituting values into the equation for N’R yields:

Discussion

This value is sufficiently high to imply a turbulent wake. Most large objects, such as airplanes and sailboats, create significant turbulence as they move. As noted before, the Bernoulli principle gives only qualitatively-correct results in such situations.

Reference : OpenStax College,College Physics. OpenStax College. 21 June 2012.
http://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/college-physics
Creative Commons License : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/