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George Bennet™_
Chris Millar

: {HODDER ~
: a EDUCATION
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/practiceinohysicO004akri
Practice in
hysics
fourth edition

Tim Akrill
George Bennet
Chris Millar

DDER
TUCATION
K COMPANY
Hachette UK’s policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and
made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are
expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Orders: please contact Bookpoint Ltd, 130 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4SB. Telephone:
(44) 01235 827720. Fax: (44) 01235 400454. Lines are open 9.00-17.00, Monday to Saturday, with
a 24-hour message answering service. Visit out website at www.hoddereducation.co.uk

© 1979, 1994, 2000, 2011 Tim Akrill, George Bennet, Chris Millar

First published in 2011 by

Hodder Education
An Hachette UK Company,
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment,
London EC4Y 0DZ

Impression number 13
Year 2019

All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, no part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or held within any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or under licence from
the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Further details of such licences (for reprographic
reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited, Saffron House,
6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Cover photo © Martin Bond/Science Photo Library

Typeset in 10.5/12pt Minion Pro by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 444 121254

Contents
About this book vi

Mechanics: linear motion

1.1 Speed and velocity
1.2 Acceleration along a line
1.3 Free fall and projectile motion

Balanced and unbalanced forces

2.1 Forces in equilibrium
2.2 Forces and moments
2.3 Forces causing acceleration

Work and energy

3.1 Work
3.2 Power
3.3 Kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy

Electricity: charge and energy

4.1 Electric current
4.2 Currents in solids and fluids
4.3 Electric cells and e.m.f.
4.4 Electrical energy and potential difference
4.5 Electrical power

Electrical resistance
5.1 Resistance
5.2 Resistivity
5.3 Internal resistance

Electrical circuits
6.1 Circuit calculations
6.2 Circuits for measurement and sensing
6.3 Meters and oscilloscopes

Physics of materials
7.1 Density, pressure and flow
7.2 Materials in tension and compression
7.3 Energy stored in stretched materials

Waves
8.1 Wave properties
8.2 Refraction
8.3 Two-source interference patterns
8.4 Stationary wave patterns
8.5 Diffraction patterns

Photons and electrons

9.1 Energy of photons and electrons
9.2 Energy levels
9.3 Waves and particles 101

10 Practising calculations 106

10.1 Numbers 106
10.2 Units and equations 107
Practice in Physics

10.3. Graphs and relationships 109

10.4 Sines, cosines and tangents 3
10.5 Angles 115
10.6 Sinusoidal oscillations 117
10.7. Exponentially varying quantities 118

11 Thermal physics 122

11.1. =Thermal energy 22
11.2 Heating solids and liquids 125
11.3. The ideal gas 129

12 Linear momentum 133

12.1. Conservation of linear momentum 133
12.2 Force and rate of change of momentum NSW

13 Circular motion and gravitation 142

13.1. Describing circular motion 142
13.2 Centripetal forces 144
13.3 Gravitational forces and fields 147
13.4 Satellite motion 151

14 Oscillations 154
14.1. Simple harmonic oscillators 154
14.2 Pendulums and mass-spring oscillators Wey
14.3. Energy transfer and resonance in oscillators 160

15 Radioactivity 163
15.1. The nuclear atom 163
15.2 Unstable nuclei 165
15.3 Properties of a, B and y radiations 168
15.4 Radioactive decay WA
15.5 Nuclear medicine 7s

16 Nuclear physics 176

16.1. Mass and energy 176
16.2 Nuclear power 181
16.3 Particle physics 185

17 Astrophysics 192
17.1. Astronomical numbers and units 2
17.2 Observing the Universe 194
17.3. Cosmology 201

18 Electric fields 208

18.1 Electrical forces 208
18.2 Uniform electric fields 210
18.3 Radial electric fields 213
19 Capacitance 216
19.1. Charge and capacitance 216
19.2 Energy and capacitors 220
19.3 Capacitor discharge 223
20 Electromagnetism 228
20.1. Magnetic forces 228
20.2 Magnetic field patterns 234
20.3 = Electromagnetic induction 235
20.4 ~The transformer 241
Answers 245
About this book ...

About this book ...

This is a book of questions to help you understand Physics during the two years
before you go to University or College, perhaps while following an AS or A Level
Physics course or preparing for other examinations such as the Pre-U or the
IB. None of the questions are from previous examination papers; questions in
examination papers are meant to test you at the end of your course or module.
What you need during the course is to do questions which will help you to check
whether you have understood what you are being taught. That is why we have
called this book Practice in Physics.

The first edition of this book was originally published in 1979 and it has been
in print ever since. We have revised it to take account of the new specifications
(syllabuses) for Advanced Level courses that started in September 2008. Some of
the questions test whether you have understood the principles, and a few should
make you think quite hard. Questions indicated by an asterisk (*) are designed to
give you practice at answering questions about How Science Works; for example,
appreciating the tentative nature of scientific knowledge or interpreting data
presented in a variety of forms.

We have included a chapter of questions (Chapter 10) which will help you
elsewhere in the book when you need certain mathematical techniques. Some of
these are very general — others will help you with particular chapters. There are
also a few questions suggesting that you search the web for information to learn
more about an up-to-date application of physics or to illustrate an historical
breakthrough. Specific references are not given as these tend to change rapidly
year by year.

At the end of the book there are answers to nearly all the questions. You will not
need to do them all! But we hope you enjoy doing most of them because part of
the pleasure of doing Physics is to discover that you can get the right answers,
showing that you understand the ideas. Throughout the book answers are given
to the same number (usually 2) of significant figures as the data in the question,
but when answers to the later parts of a question depend on the answers to
earlier parts, you should use the unrounded figures for the later parts.

Tim Akrill and Chris Millar

June 2011
Photo Credits
p.7 TRL LTD./SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY; p.8 © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company, Printed with permission; p.14 Neil Tingle/Action Plus;
p.21 Neil Tingle/Action Plus; p.25 Imagestate Media; p.37 © manfredxy -
Fotolia.com; p.46 Sascha Wilsrecht — Fotolia; p.67 HATTIE YOUNG/SCIENCE
PHOTO LIBRARY; p.75 Kallista Images/Getty Images; p.83 r Darren Brode
— Fotolia; p.87 1 © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Printed
with permission; r © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Printed
with permission; p.88 © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
Printed with permission; p.89 © IOP Publishing Ltd , Printed with permission;
p-96 | Reprinted from Advances in Biological and Medical Physics, Vol. 5 no. 211,
A. Rose, “Quantum effects in human vision’, pp.211-242, Copyright 1957/
Reprinted with permission by Elsevier, r Reprinted from Advances in Biological
and Medical Physics, Vol. 5 no. 211, A. Rose, “Quantum effects in human vision’,
pp.211-242, Copyright 1957/Reprinted with permission by Elsevier; p.103 1 ©
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Printed with permission,
r © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Printed with permission;
p.129 Betsie Van der Meer/Stone/Getty Images; p.151 NASA; p.153 NASA;
p.158 NASA; p.159 © MBI/Alamy; p.168 © Science Museum/Science & Society
Picture Library; p.180 LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY/
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY; p.190 LAWRENCE BERKELEY LABORATORY/
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY; p.201 NASA/JPL/California Institute of
Technology, p. 233 © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library.
Mechanics:
linear motion
free fall acceleration at the Earth’s surface g = 9.81 ms”
1 mile = 1.6km
speed of sound in air = 340ms"!
speed oflight in a vacuum c = 3.00 x 108’ms"!
EE SS SRST NLR NE LE RES DT TN DIS PR SST TSI ES I SSE LS EIB OE ERE LITCIES(ELLE ERIE,

Speed and velocity

In this section you will need to

use the equation average velocity= As/At

understand that displacement and velocity are vector ee
remember how to measure speed
understand that the gradient of a displacement-time graph is the velocity
understand that the area between a velocity-time graph and the time axis represents
the displacement.

1.1 Starting from home, a jogger runs 4.0km (about 2.5 miles). She returns home after
20 minutes. What is (a) her average speed (b) her average velocity?

1.2 The diagram shows the oil spots

left on a road by a motorbike with |
a leaky sump as the bike travels LAE rad
from A to G. Describe the journey, a B eli:
assuming that the drips come at
regular time intervals.

1.3 The diagram shows the observed movement ofa smoke particle in a Brownian motion
experiment.
(a) Use a ruler to find (i) the total distance moved by B
the smoke particle in going from A to B (ii) the
displacement AB. A
(b) If it took 1.20s to travel from A to B, calculate (i) the
average speed (ii) the average velocity of the smoke
particle. 0.01 mm

1.4 What is the change of velocity when

(a) +6.0ms"! becomes +15ms" (b) +6.0ms' becomes -15ms"!
(c) +6.0ms-! becomes -6.0ms"! (d) 5.0ms' east becomes 15ms"! west?
Practice in Physics

1.5 A skier moves at 11.0ms~! down a 16° slope. What is the skier’s (a) vertical velocity
(b) horizontal velocity?

1.6 The European Space Agency's Giotto spacecraft encountered Halley’s comet in March
1986, when the comet was 93 million kilometres from Earth. How long did it take radio
signals (travelling at the speed of light) to reach Earth from Giotto? [Use data.]

1.7 The graph shows the forward

motion of a swimmer who dives in
and swims a length in a 50-m pool. a
(a) What is the swimmer’s average a
speed during (i) the first 10s
(ii) from 20s to 35s (iii) the 40
last 10s?
Suggest why the average
30
speeds are different.
(b) At 20s, at what speed is the
swimmer moving? 20

10

| | | 2 i | |

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 tls

1.8* When races are timed manually, timers start their watches when they see the smoke
from the starting gun rather than when they hear the gun. How much error is
introduced in timing a 100-m race if the watch is started on the sound rather than on the
smoke? [Use data.]

19° (a) Show that 25 m.p.h. is equivalent to about 11 ms~'. [Use data.]
(b) In an emergency, you have a reaction time of 0.60s. Calculate how far you would
travel in this time on a bicycle moving at 25 m.p.h.

The diagram has been drawn after studying a

stroboscopic photograph of a golf swing. The
stroboscope was flashing 50 times per second.
(a) Sketch a graph showing how the speed of the head
of the golf club varies with time from A to D.
(b) Using the scale from the 1.00m ruler at the
bottom of the diagram, estimate the speed of the
club-head from (i) B to C (ii) P to Q.
(c) Estimate the speed of the golf ball between X
and Y.

———
SU =

Approaching Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport, passenger P uses the walkway and, having
heavy luggage, allows it to take him along. Passenger Q walks alongside the walkway and
passenger R walks on it, both walking briskly at 1.2ms". The walkway is 40m long and
moves at 0.80ms".
1 Mechanics: linear motion

(a) Calculate how long it takes P, Q and R to reach the other end of the walkway.
Suppose a small boy on the walkway moved across it from one side to the other at a
speed of 0.6ms"!.
(b) Draw a vector diagram illustrating the boy’s motion and calculate his resultant
velocity.

1.12 Show that 50m.p.h. is only 1% larger than 80kmh~'. [Use data.]

1.13 A speed skier registers an average speed of 233.7 kmh over a distance of exactly one
kilometre.
(a) How long did he take to cover the kilometre?
(b) Express his average speed in ms".

1.14 The graph shows the motion of a stone thrown vertically upward. Calculate the
maximum height reached by the stone
(a) by first finding the average velocity of the stone
(b) by finding the area under the graph.
vins' 12

1.15 A snooker ball is rolled to strike the side cushion of a full-sized snooker table at right
angles, so that it bounces across the table several times.
The graph shows how its velocity changes during its first three crossings (assuming it
loses speed only when it bounces).
(a) Carefully describe the motion of the snooker ball.
(b) Do two separate calculations to determine the width of the snooker table.

1.16 Draw a velocity-time graph for a tennis ball which is being volleyed backwards and
forwards by two players close to the net. Assume that the ball travels horizontally and
perpendicular to the net but that the players hit it so that it travels at a variety of speeds.
Practice in Physics

1.17 An ultrasonic displacement sensor is used to study the motion of a trolley sliding down
a ramp in the laboratory. The displacement oe ie
against time data is presented on-screen as a
graph and then converted to a velocity-time = ie
graph as shown. 8 E
(a) Which graph is s-t and which is v-#? a) rs 0 5
(b) Explain the relationship between the two = ©
graphs.
(c) Verify that the computer software has 05 : ea Hee
drawn the v-t graph correctly at t = 2s. finials

Use a scale diagram

(a) to adda displacement of 5.6km north to a displacement of 3.5 km north-west
(b) to add a velocity of 32 ms" south-west to a velocity of 18 ms! 20° west of north.

Acceleration along a line

In this section you will need to

use the equation: average acceleration = Av/At

understand that the gradient of a velocity-time graph is the acceleration
remember how to measure acceleration
understand how to draw graphs for displacement, velocity or acceleration against time
when given only one of them
use the following equations for uniform acceleration: v = u + at, s = 4(u + v)/t and
(when u = 0) s= sat

1.19 A baby buggy rolls down a ramp which is 15m long. It starts from rest, accelerates
uniformly, and takes 5.0s to reach the bottom.
(a) Calculate its average velocity as it moves down the ramp.
(b) What is its velocity at the bottom of the ramp?
(c) What is its acceleration down the ramp?

1.20 A man, John L. Stapp, travelling in a rocket-powered sledge, accelerated from 0 to

284ms” (about 630 m.p.h.) in 5.0s and then came to a stop in only 1.5s. Calculate his
acceleration
(a) while he is speeding up
(b) while he is slowing down.

1.21 The graph shows, in idealised form, a velocity-time graph for a typical short journey.
(a) Calculate the acceleration at each stage of the journey and display your answers on
an acceleration-time graph.
(b) Sketch a displacement-time graph for this journey.
1 Mechanics: linear motion

vims~' 30

20

10

0 10 20 30 40 tls

1.22 One type of aeroplane has a maximum acceleration on the ground of 3.5ms~”.
(a) For how many seconds must it accelerate along a runway at this value in order to
reach its take-off speed of 115ms7!?
(b) What is the minimum length of runway needed to reach this speed?

1.23 Sketch a displacement-time curve, a velocity-time curve and an acceleration-time curve

for an electrically powered milk trolley moving from one house to another on a straight
road. Use the same time axes for all three graphs. [Hint: Start with the v-t graph.]

1.24 The graph shows the horizontal speed vims 1c

of a long jumper from the start of his BREE CEE
run-up to the moment when he takes off.
(a) What is his maximum acceleration?
(b) Estimate the distance he runs before
he takes off.
(c) Sketch the general shape of his
acceleration against time.
t/s

1.25 A particle moves in a straight line. Its motion can be described as follows:
att=0,v=0
U<f< 10ss0=40ms7
10s <f< 20s, a=-40ms~.
Sketch the velocity-time graph and use it to find the change of displacement of the
particle between t = 0 and t = 20s.

1.26* The UK Highway Code has a table of “Typical Stopping Distances’ on straight roads in
dry conditions. The diagram is based on this information.
Seuss PUsne eReSeeaaeaees
Practice in Physics

The shaded arrows represent the ‘thinking distance, the unshaded part the ‘braking
distance’ and the whole arrow the ‘stopping distance.
(a) Make a table of the thinking distances d,,, and sketch a graph of d,,..,. (y-axis)
against speed v (x-axis) from v = 0 to v= 70m.p.h.
(b) Deduce a relation between these two variables.
(c) Predict the thinking distance for a police car travelling at 90 m.p.h.
(d) Do you think that the driver's consumption of alcohol would affect the stopping
distances? Explain your answer.

rarfi (a) Using the Highway Code data from the previous question, make a table of the
braking distances d,_.. and sketch a graph of d,_,, (in metres on the y-axis) against
speed v (in m.p.h. on the x-axis), from v = 0 to v= 70m.p.h.
(b) The relationship here is that d,_.. = ku’, where k is a constant. Test this statement by
calculating k for three numerical values of d,_,, and v.
(c) Use the data to calculate the acceleration when braking from (i) 50 m.p.h.
(ii) 70 m.p.h.

1.28* In France the motorways have different speed limits depending on the road condition.
They are:
when dry 130kmh
when wet 110kmh !
Using the data translate these into m.p.h. and comment on the French system.

1.29 (a) Slow motion photography shows that a jumping flea pushes against the ground
for about 0.001 s during which time it accelerates upwards to a maximum speed of
0.8ms-'. What is its upward acceleration during this ‘take-off’?
(b) It then moves upwards with an acceleration of -12 ms~. (This is assumed to be
constant and includes the effect of air resistance.) Calculate (i) how long it takes
from leaving the ground to the top of its jump (ii) how high it jumps.

1.30 Electrons in a particle accelerator are moving at 8.0 x 10°ms"! and are then
accelerated to 6.5 x 10°msin 6.3 x 10°’s.
(a) What is their acceleration in the tube?
(b) How far do they move during this time?

1.31 The graph shows the result of studying a wins

sprint start.
(a) What was the maximum
velocity reached? [Use data.]
(b) Estimate the acceleration of the sprinter
(i) as she leaves her blocks (ii) after 2.0s.

1.32 Use the two equations for uniform acceleration at the beginning of this chapter to
produce
(a) an equation linking u, v, a and s
(b) an equation linking s, u, a and t.
1 Mechanics: linear motion

1.33 A gazelle accelerates at 4.1 ms~ from rest for a distance of 55m in order to outrun a
predator. What is its final speed?

1.34* A person who is properly held } $333 gece

by a seat belt has a good chance = SSeess | 333333 %
of surviving a car collision if the g
deceleration does not exceed 30g.
Assuming uniform deceleration at
this rate, calculate the distance that
the front section of the car must
‘crumple’ if a crash occurs at 65kmh"!
(40 m.p.h.).

1.35 The best throwers in the world are baseball pitchers. They can release a ball travelling at
40ms“‘. In so doing they accelerate the baseball through a distance of 3.6m. Calculate
the average acceleration of the ball.

1.36 The graph describes the motion of a train moving in a speed-restricted area and then
accelerating as it clears the area. You are to calculate the total distance travelled by the
train in the 40s shown in three different ways.
(a) Use the average velocity of the train during each 20s interval to calculate two
separate distances and add them together.
(b) Use equation (b) from question 1.32.
(c) Find the number of squares under the graph and the distance represented by one
square.
vim s"' “|

Oi

0 10 20 30 40 tls

Free fall and projectile motion

In this section you will need to

remember that the free fall acceleration at the Earth’s surface is 9.8ms~
remember how to measure the free fall acceleration in the laboratory
use the equations v’ = 2gs and s = 3g?’ for free fall from rest
understand that when an object is falling freely its vertical motion is independent of
its horizontal motion
remember that velocity vectors can be resolved into two perpendicular components,
v, = vcos6 and v, = vsin@, where 0 is the angle between v and the x-axis.

1.37. A ball is thrown vertically upwards at 19.6ms".

(a) Make a table showing its velocity after 1.0s, 2.0s, 3.0s and 4.0s.
Practice in Physics

(b) What is its displacement after 2.0s and 4.0s?

(c) How far does it travel in the first 4.0 s?

1.38 (a) Ignoring air resistance, how long does an object take to fall from rest a distance of
(i) 1.0 m (ii) 2.0m?
(b) Why is the answer to (ii) not twice the answer to (i)?

1.39* (a) Explain how the apparatus shown electromagnet

can be used to measure g.
(b) What sources of error are there
likely to be in such an experiment? steel _-- ©
two-way
switch

to
timing
device

hinged trapdoor

1.40 In an experiment with the above apparatus a steel sphere is found to fall a distance
456mm in 301 ms. Calculate
(a) the average velocity of the sphere as it falls
(b) the velocity with which the steel sphere hits the trap door
(c) the acceleration of the steel sphere.

1.41 Parachutists hit the ground at about 6ms”’. How high a platform is needed for them to
jump off in order to give them practice at hitting the ground at this speed?

1.42 In a cartoon two characters are standing by a well. One drops a stone down the well
and starts to count. He stops counting when he hears the stone hit the water. He then
announces proudly, “Your well is exactly three seconds deep. How deep is the well really?

1.43 A salmon moving upstream to its breeding grounds jumps a waterfall 2.5m high. With
what minimum speed must it leave the water below to reach the top level?

1.44 The photograph shows two golf balls,

one released from rest and the other
projected horizontally at the same
moment.
(a) How does the photograph
confirm that vertical motion
in free fall is independent of
horizontal motion?
(b) How would you use the diagram
to confirm that the horizontal
velocity of the projected ball
remains constant as it falls?
1 Mechanics: linear motion

1.45 A bullet is fired horizontally at a speed of 200 ms” at a target which is 100m away.
(a) Ignoring air resistance, calculate (i) how far the bullet has fallen when it hits the
target (ii) the bullet’s vertical velocity as it hits the target.
(b) What is the angle it then makes with the horizontal?

1.46 The diagram shows a velocity-time graph for a ball bouncing vertically on a hard
surface.
(a) Explain the shape of the graph.
(b) Use the graph to calculate three separate values for the acceleration of free fall.
(c) Use the graph to calculate the height from which the ball was dropped and the
height to which it bounced on (i) its first bounce (ii) its second bounce.

vims7! 4

ok

1.47. The Olympic flame at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics was lit by a flaming arrow that
followed the trajectory shown in the diagram.
(a) The arrow was at the peak of its trajectory when it lit the flame. Show that it took
2.2s to rise 24m after being fired. Ignore air resistance.
(b) Hence calculate (i) the horizontal speed and (ii) the initial vertical speed of the
arrow and confirm that it was fired at about 40° to the horizontal.

arrow uae
trajectory _-
mm

aS
poe
peel

60m

1.48 You drop a heavy stone from a high suspension bridge and one second later you drop a
second stone.
(a) Draw two v-t graphs for the two stones on the same graph axes.
(b) Explain how the distance between the two stones changes as they fall towards the
water.

1.49 You throw a stone vertically upwards and catch it as it comes down.
How could you best describe the motion of the stone to another person who is also
studying physics?
Practice in Physics

1.50 The long jumper in the diagram is shown at the instant he leaves the ground, at three
positions during his flight and at the instant he first touches the sand. His long jump
measures 7.5m and he is recorded as being in the air for 0.80s. His centre of gravity falls
0.95 m between his take-off and landing.
(a) Calculate his horizontal velocity at take-off.
(b) Use the equation s = ut + Sat’, developed in question 1.32, to show that the vertical
velocity u of the long jumper at take-off is 2.7(4) ms". (Be careful with the signs
of quantities in this equation: if upwards is positive, both s and g will have negative
values.)
(c) Hence calculate the angle at which he projects himself at take-off.

1.51* The men’s long jump world record went up from 7.61 m in 1901 (Peter O'Connor, GB) to
8.13m in 1935 (Jesse Owens, US) to 8.95m in 1991 (Mike Powell, US).
(a) Show that these roughly represent a steady rise during the 20" century.
(b) Bob Beamon (US) broke the world record in 1968. Use the data to predict what his
record might have been.
(c) In fact Beamon jumped 8.90m in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympic Games. Suggest
why his record was much more than your prediction.
Balanced and
unbalanced forces
gravitational field strength g = 9.81 Nkg™ (3s.f.),g= 9.8Nkg" (2s.f.)
You will need to use one of these values for g in many of the questions in this chapter.
Choose the one that has the same number of significant figures as the data in the question.

Forces in equilibrium

In this section you will need to

understand that all forces are pushes or pulls of one body on another
use the phrase ‘the push (or pull) of A on B’ when describing any particular force
understand the meaning of the words weight and tension and of frictional and normal
contact forces
« draw free-body force diagrams when analysing problems about bodies which are in
equilibrium
2 understand that when a body is in equilibrium the sum of the forces acting on it,
resolved in any direction, is zero
= understand that forces occur in pairs which act on different bodies and that the push
or pull ofA on B is always equal in size to the push or pull of Bon A
: understand how to resolve forces into two mutually perpendicular components and
how to add two forces which are perpendicular to one another.

2.1 A new-born baby is said to be a healthy 7.8 pounds (Ib). What is the baby’s weight in
newtons? Take 2.2lb = 1.0kg.

2.2 The bodies shown in each of the following free-body force diagrams are in equilibrium.

270 N 45°7\ iS:

420 N

(a) Write down the value of the unknown force in each diagram.
(b) For the hanging picture, draw a closed vector triangle to confirm that the body is in
equilibrium.

11
Practice in Physics

2.3 A child sits at rest on a swing. The figure shows free-body force diagrams for (i) the child
(ii) the swing seat.
(a) For each of the forces P, W, T, w and P’, identify the body which is producing the
force. [P’ is not produced by the Earth.]
(b Write a phrase describing each force as the push or pull of the identified body on
(i) the child (ii) the seat.
(c) In this situation P = W, T = w + P’ and P = P’. Explain each equation in terms of
Newton's laws.
r

(ii) P’

2.4 A child learning to swim is supported in a harness by her instructor who stands on the
side of the pool. The forces acting on the child are:
the pull W ofthe Earth on the child, 300N
the pull P of the harness on the child
the push U of the water on the child, 250N.
(a) Draw a free-body force diagram for the child. How big is P?
(b) Newton's third law tells us that there are other forces equal in size to W, P and U. On
which bodies do each of these forces act?
(c) Draw a free-body force diagram for the instructor who weighs 800 N. Deduce the
normal contact push of the floor on him.

2.5 The diagram shows two skaters.

At the moment shown the
woman (left) is exerting a
horizontal pull on the man who
is moving at a constant velocity.
(a) Draw a free-body force
diagram for the man.
(b) Ifthe man weighs 700N and
his partner’s horizontal pull
on him is 100N, what are
(i) the upward push of the
ice on the man
(ii) the horizontal frictional force of the ice on the man?
(c) Calculate the total force of the ice on the man.

2.6 A racing car is shown in the diagram together with a free-body force diagram describing
the forces acting on it.
2 Balanced and unbalanced forces

mm steady 140 m.p.h.

=\ We
6 =o
5000 N 6000 N
(a) Copy the free-body force diagram and list the forces using phrases which end with
‘on the car. [Q is not the push or pull of the engine on the car.]
(b) How big are the forces P and Q?
(c) What would happen to the size of (i) L (ii) F, if the car was moving more slowly?

2.7 A man is pulled by a dog on a lead. The pull of the lead on the man is 20N and is inclined
at an angle of 15° to the horizontal. What is the size of the resolved part of this force
(a) in the horizontal direction
(b) in the vertical direction?

2.8 A force P is 20N in a direction N60°E. What is the resolved part of the force
(a) north
(b) east
(c) N30°E?

2.9 An empty sledge of mass 5.0kg slides at a

constant speed down a slope that makes an
angle of 20° to the horizontal. The diagram
shows a free-body force diagram for the sledge.
(a) Sketch a vector triangle showing that
these forces are in equilibrium.
(b) Calculate the size of each of the forces.

2.10* In designing access ramps for a shopping mall,

it is decided that the maximum force required
by someone pushing a person in a wheelchair of total mass 90kg should be 80N.
(a) Calculate the maximum angle for the ramps.
(b) Discuss whether your answer ‘works’ for people pushing heavier people in
wheelchairs.

\
The diagram shows an end-on view of a cable © cable (end on)
car that has stopped because of high winds. The
wind is exerting a steady horizontal sideways support
force of 5.2kN on the cable car, which has
a total weight of 24kN. The cable car is in
equilibrium.
(a) Representing the cable car as a blob, add
the three forces acting on the cable car.
(b) Draw, to scale, a closed vector triangle ge or
for the three forces and deduce the angle wind
between the support arm and the vertical. rs
(c) Is the tension in the support arm very much
bigger than its value when there is nO Wind? —smeesemo=t
13
Practice in Physics

2.12 A stone of weight 32N is attached to a wire and hung from a rigid support. A string
is then attached to the stone and is pulled sideways with a horizontal force P until the
tension in the wire is 44N.
(a) What is then the angle between the wire and the vertical?
(b) Calculate the size of the force P.

2.13 A very heavy sack is hung from a rope and pushed sideways. When the horizontal
sideways push is 220N the rope supporting the sack is inclined at 18° to the vertical.
(a) Calculate the tension in the rope.
(b) Hence find the mass of the sack.

2.14 A gymnast of weight 720N is holding himself in

the cross position on the high rings. He is quite
still. A free-body force diagram for the gymnast
shows the two upward pulls of the rings on his
hands, each of size 380N.
Calculate the angle @ between the wires supporting
the rings and the vertical.

720N

Forces and moments

In this section you will need to

' use the equation: moment of a force about an axis = the force times the perpendicular
distance from the axis to the line of action of the force
1 draw free-body force diagrams for extended bodies in equilibrium when solving
problems involving the principle of moments
use the principle of moments: for a body in equilibrium the sum of the moments of
the forces acting on it, about any axis, is zero
understand that couples and torques exert moments on extended bodies.

2.15 The diagram shows a boy B and a girl G on a seesaw plus a free-body force diagram for
the seesaw beam. P

400 N 300 N FE
Other documents randomly have
different content
CHAPTER IV
TO the surprise of his friends, Alan Wayne gave up debauch and
found himself employment by the time the spring that saw his
dismissal from Maple House had ripened into summer. He was full of
preparation for his departure for Africa when a summons from old
Captain Wayne reached him.
With equal horror of putting up at hotels or relatives’ houses, the
captain, upon his arrival in town, had gone straight to his club, and
forthwith become the sensation of the club’s windows. Old members
felt young when they caught sight of him, as though they had come
suddenly on a vanished landmark restored. Passing gamins gazed on
his short-cropped gray hair, staring eyes, flaring collar, black string
tie, and flowing broadcloth, and remarked:
“Gee! look at de old spoit in de winder!”
Alan heard the remark as he entered the club, and smiled.
“How do you do, sir?”
“Huh!” grunted the captain. “Sit down.” He ordered a drink for his
guest and another for himself. He glared at the waiter. He glared at a
callow youth who had come up and was looking with speculative eye
at a neighboring chair. The waiter retired almost precipitously. The
youth followed.
“In my time,” remarked the captain, “a club was for privacy. Now
it’s a haven for bell-boys and a playground for whipper-snappers.”
“They’ve made me a member, sir.”
“Have, eh!” growled the captain, and glared at his nephew. Alan
took inspection coolly, a faint smile on his thin face. The captain
turned away his bulging eyes, crossed and uncrossed his legs, and
finally spoke. “I was just going to say when you interrupted,” he
began, “that engineering is a dirty job. Not, however,” he continued
after a pause, “dirtier than most. It’s a profession, but not a career.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Alan. “They’ve got a few in the army,
and they seem to be doing pretty well.”
“Huh, the army!” said the captain. He subsided, and made a new
start. “What’s your appointment?”
“It doesn’t amount to an appointment. Just a job as assistant to
Walton, the engineer the contractors are sending out. We’re going to
put up a bridge somewhere in Africa.”
“That’s it. I knew it,” said the captain. “Going away. Want any
money?”
The question came like solid shot out of a four-pounder. Alan
started, colored, and smiled all at the same time.
“No, thanks, sir,” he replied; “I’ve got all I need.”
The captain hitched his chair forward, and glared out on the
avenue.
“The Lansings,” he began, like a boy reciting a piece, “are devils
for drink, the Waynes for women. Don’t you ever let ’em worry you
about drink. Nowadays the doctors call us non-alcoholic. In my time
it was just plain strong heads for wine. I say, don’t worry about
drink. There’s a safety-valve in every Wayne’s gullet. But women,
Alan!” The captain slued around his bulging eyes. “You look out for
them. As your great-grandfather used to say, ‘To women, only
perishable goods—sweets, flowers, and kisses.’ And you take it from
me, kisses aren’t always the cheapest. They say God made
everything down to little apples and Jersey lightning, but when He
made women the devil helped.” The captain’s nervousness dropped
from him as he deliberately drew out his watch and fob. “Good thing
he did, too,” he added as a pleasing afterthought. He leaned back in
his chair. A complacent look came over his face.
Alan got up to say good-by. The captain rose, too, and clasped
the hand Alan held out.
“One more thing,” he said. “Don’t forget there’s always a Wayne
to back a Wayne for good or bad.” There was a suspicion of moisture
in his eye as he hurried his guest off.
Back in his rooms, Alan found letters awaiting him. He read
them, and tore all up except one. It was from Clem. She wrote:

Dear Alan: Nance says you are going very far away. I am sorry. It has
been raining here very much. In the hollows all the bridges are under
water. I have invented a new game. It is called “steamboat.” I play it on
old Dubbs. We go down into the valley, and I make him go through the
water around the bridges. He puffs just like a steamboat, and when he
gets out, he smokes all over. He is too fat. I hope you will come back very
soon.
CLEM.

That evening Clem was thrown into a transport by receiving her

first telegram. It read:

You must not play steamboat again; it is dangerous.

ALAN.

She tucked it in her bosom and rushed over to the Firs to show it
to Gerry.
Gerry and Alix were spending the summer at the Firs, where Mrs.
Lansing, Gerry’s widowed mother, was still nominally the hostess.
They had been married two years, but people still spoke of Alix as
Gerry’s bride, and, in so doing, stamped her with her own seal. To
strangers they carried the air of a couple about to be married at the
rational close of a long engagement. No children or thought of
children had come to turn the channel of life for Alix. On Gerry,
marriage sat as an added habit. It was beginning to look as though
he and Alix drifted together not because they were carried by the
same currents, but because they were tied.
Where duller minds would have dubbed Gerry the Ox, Alan had
named him the Rock, and Alan was right. Gerry had a dignity beyond
mere bulk. He had all the powers of resistance, none of articulation.
Where a pin-prick would start an ox, it took an upheaval to move
Gerry. An upheaval was on the way, but Gerry did not know it. It
was yet afar off.
To the Lansings marriage had always been one of the regular
functions of a regulated life, part of the general scheme of things.
Gerry was slowly realizing that his marriage with Alix was far from a
mere function, had little to do with a regular life, and was foreign to
what he had always considered the general scheme of things. Alix
had developed quite naturally into a social butterfly. Gerry did not
picture her as chain-lightning playing on a rock, as Alan would have
done; but he did in a vague way feel that bits of his impassive self
were being chipped away.
Red Hill bored Alix, and she showed it. The first summer after the
marriage they had spent abroad. Now Alix’s thoughts and talk turned
constantly toward Europe. She even suggested a flying trip for the
autumn, but Gerry refused to be dragged so far from golf and his
club. He stuck doggedly to Red Hill till the leaves began to turn, and
then consented to move back to town.
On their last night at the Firs, Mrs. Lansing, who was
complimentary Aunt Jane to Waynes and Eltons, entertained Red Hill
as a whole to dinner. With the arrival of dessert, to Alix’s surprise,
Nance said, “Port all around, please, Aunt Jane.”
Lansings, Waynes, and Eltons were heavy drinkers in town, but it
was a tradition, as Alix knew, that on Red Hill they dropped it—all
but the old captain. It was as though, amid the scenes of their
childhood, they became children, and just as a Frenchman of the old
school will not light a cigarette in the presence of his father, so they
would not take a drink for drink’s sake on Red Hill.
So Alix looked on interestedly as the old butler set glasses and
started the port. When it had gone the round, Nance stood up, and
with her hands on the table’s edge leaned toward them all. For a
Wayne, she was very fair. As they looked at her, the color swept up
over her bare neck. Its wave reached her temples, and seemed to
stir the clustering tendrils of her hair. Her eyes were grave and bright
with moisture. Her lips were tremulous.
“We drink to Alan,” she said; “to-day is Alan’s birthday.”
She sat down. They all raised their glasses. Little Clem had no
wine. She put a thin hand on Gerry’s arm.
“Please, Gerry! Please!”
Gerry held down his glass. Clematis dipped in the tip of her little
finger, and, as they all drank, gravely carried the drop of wine to her
lips.
CHAPTER V
AS Judge Healey, gray-haired, but erect, walked up the avenue
his keen glance fell on Gerry Lansing standing across the street
before an art dealer’s window. Gerry’s eyes were fastened on a
picture that he had long had in mind for a certain nook in the library
of the town house.
It was the second anniversary of his wedding, and though it was
already late in the afternoon, Gerry had not yet chosen his gift for
Alix. He turned from the picture with a last long look and a shrug,
and passed on to a palatial jeweler’s farther up the street.
For many years Judge Healey had been foster-father to Red Hill
in general and to Gerry in particular. With almost womanly intuition
he read what was in Gerry’s mind before the picture, and acting on
impulse, the judge crossed the street and bought it.
While the judge was still in the picture shop, Gerry came out of
the jeweler’s and started briskly for home. He had purchased a
pendant of brilliants, extravagant for his purse, but yet saved to
good taste by a simple originality in design.
He waited until the dinner-hour, and then slipped his gift into
Alix’s hand as they walked down the stairs together. She stopped
beneath the hall light.
“I can’t wait, dear; I simply can’t,” she said, and snapped open
the case.
“Oh!” she gasped. “How dear! How perfectly dear! You old
sweetheart!”
She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him twice; then
she flew away to the drawing-room in search of Mrs. Lansing and
the judge, the sole guests at the little anniversary dinner. Gerry
straightened his tie and followed.
Alix’s tongue was rippling, her whole body was rippling, with
excitement and pleasure. She dangled her treasure before their
eyes. She laid it against her warm neck and ran to a mirror. The light
in her eyes matched the light in the stones. The judge took the
jewel and laid it in the palm of his strong hand. It looked in danger
of being crushed.
“A beautiful thing, Gerry,” he said, “and well chosen. Some poet
jeweler dreamed that twining design, and set the stones while the
dew was still on the grass.”
After dinner the four gathered in the library, but they were hardly
seated when Alix sprang up. Her glance had followed Gerry’s startled
gaze. He was staring at the coveted picture he had been looking at
in the gallery that afternoon. It hung in the niche in which his
thoughts had placed it. Alix took her stand before it. She glanced
inquiringly at the others. Mrs. Lansing nodded at the judge. Alix
turned back to the picture, and gravity stole into her face. Then she
faced the judge with a smile.
“We live,” she said, “in a Philistine age, don’t we? But I’ve never
let my Philistinism drive pictures from their right place in the heart.
Pictures in art galleries—” she shrugged her pretty shoulders—“I
have not been trained up to them. To me they are mounted
butterflies in a museum, cut flowers crowded at the florist’s. But this
picture and that nook—they have waited for each other. You see the
picture nestling down for a long rest, and it seems a small thing, and
then it catches your eye and holds it, and you see that it is a little
door that opens on a wide world. It has slipped into the room and
become a part of life.”
A strange stillness followed Alix’s words. To the judge and to
Gerry it was as though the picture had opened a window to her
mind. Then she closed the window.
“Come, Gerry,” she said, turning, “make your bow to the judge
and bark.”
Gerry was excited, though he did not show it.
“You have dressed my thoughts in words I can’t equal,” he said,
and strolled out to the little veranda at the back of the house. He
wanted to be alone for a moment and think over this flash of light
that had followed a dark day. For the first time in a long while Alix
had revealed herself. He did not begrudge the judge his triumph. He
knew instinctively that coming from him instead of from the judge
the picture would not have struck that intimate spark.
The next day Gerry gave his consent to Alix’s plan for a flying trip
abroad, but with a reservation. The reservation was that she should
leave him behind.
Judge Healey heard of this arrangement only when it was on the
point of being put into effect. In fact, he was only just in time at the
steamer to wave good-by to Alix. Leaning over the rail, with her high
color, moist red lips, and excited big eyes making play under a
golden crown of hair and over a huge armful of roses, Alix presented
a picture not easily forgotten.
The judge turned to Gerry.
“She ought not to be going without you, my boy.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said Gerry, lightly. “She’s well chaperoned. It’s
a big party, you know.”
But during the weeks that followed the judge saw it was not all
right. Gerry had less and less time for golf and more and more for
whisky and soda. The judge was troubled, and felt a sort of relief
when from far away Alan Wayne cropped into his affairs and gave
him something else to think about.
When Angus McDale of McDale & McDale called without
appointment, the judge knew at once that he was going to hear
something about Alan.
“Lucky to find you in,” puffed McDale. “It isn’t business exactly or
I’d have ’phoned. I was just passing by.”
“Well, what is it?” asked the judge, offering his visitor a fresh
cigar.
“It’s this. That boy, Alan Wayne—sort of protégé of yours, isn’t
he?”
“Yes, in a way—yes,” said the judge, slowly, frowning. “What has
Alan done now?”
“It’s like this,” said McDale. “Six months ago we sent Mr. Wayne
out on contract as assistant to Walton. Walton no sooner got on the
ground than he fell sick. He put Wayne in charge, and then he died.
Now, this is the point. Mr. Wayne seems to have promoted himself to
Walton’s pay. He had the cheek to draw his own as well. He won’t be
here for weeks, but his accounts came in to-day. I want to know if
you see any reason why we shouldn’t have that money back, to say
the least.”
The judge’s face cleared.
“Didn’t he tell you why he drew Walton’s pay?”
“Not a word. Said he’d explain accounts when he got here, but
that sort of thing takes a lot of explaining.”
“Well,” said the judge, “I can tell you. Walton’s pay went to his
widow, through me. I’ve been doing some puzzling on this case
already. Now will you tell me how Alan got the money without
drawing on you?”
“Oh, there was plenty of money lying around. The job cost ten
per cent. less than Walton’s estimate. If he’d come back, we’d have
hauled him over the coals for that blunder. There was the usual
reserve for work in inaccessible regions, and then the people we did
the job for paid ten days’ bonus for finishing that much ahead of
contract time.”
The judge mused.
“Was the job satisfactory to the people out there?” he asked.
“Yes, it was,” said McDale, bluntly; “most satisfactory. But there
was a funny thing there, too. They wrote that while they did not
approve of Mr. Wayne’s time-saving methods, the finished work had
their absolute acceptance.”
The judge was silent for a moment.
“You want my advice?” he asked.
“Yes; not for our own sake, but for Wayne’s.”
“Well,” said the judge, “I’m going to give it to you for your sake.
When you stumble across a boy that can cut ten per cent. off the
working and time estimates of an old hand like Walton, you bind him
to you with a long contract at any salary he wants. And just one
thing more: when Alan Wayne steals a cent from you, or fifty
thousand dollars, you come to me, and I’ll pay it.”
McDale’s eyes narrowed, and he puffed nervously at his cigar. He
got up to take his leave.
“Judge,” he said, “your head is on right, and your heart’s in the
right place, as well. I begin to see that widow business. Wayne sized
us up for a hard-headed firm when it comes to paying out what we
don’t have to, and we are. It wasn’t law, but he was right. Walton’s
work was done just as if he’d been alive. Even a Scotchman can see
that. You needn’t worry. A man that you’ll back for fifty thousand is
good enough for McDale & McDale.”
CHAPTER VI
IT was Alix who discovered Alan as the Elenic steamed slowly
down the Solent. He was already comfortably established in his
chair, with a small pile of fiction beside him.

Drawn by Reginald Birch

“‘IN MY TIME,’ REMARKED THE CAPTAIN, ‘A CLUB WAS FOR PRIVACY. NOW IT’S A
HAVEN FOR BELL-BOYS AND A PLAYGROUND FOR WHIPPER-SNAPPERS’”

She paused before she approached him. Alan had always

interested her. Perhaps it was because he had kept himself at a
distance; but, then, he had a way of keeping his distance from
almost everybody. Alix had thought of him heretofore as a modern
exquisite subject to atavic fits that, in times past, had led him into
more than one barbarous escapade. It was the flare of daring in
these shameful outbursts that had saved him from a suspicion of
effeminacy. Now, in London she had by chance heard things of him
that forced her to a readjustment of her estimate. In six months
Alan had turned himself into a mystery.
“Well,” she said, coming up behind him, “how are you?”
Alan turned his head slowly, and then threw off his rugs and
sprang to his feet.
“The sky is clear,” he said; “where did you drop from?” His eyes
measured her. She was ravishing in a fur toque and coat which had
yet to receive their baptism of import duty.
“Oh,” said Alix, “my presence is humdrum. Just the usual
returning from six weeks abroad. But you! You come from the
haunts of wild beasts, and from all accounts you have been one.”
“Been one! From all accounts!” exclaimed Alan, a puzzled frown
on his face. “Just what do you mean?”
They started walking.
“I mean that even in Africa one can’t hide from Piccadilly. In
Piccadilly you are already known not as Mr. Alan Wayne, a New York
social satellite, but as a whirlwind in shirt-sleeves. Ten Per Cent.
Wayne, in short.” She looked at him with teasing archness. She
could see that he was worried.
“Satellite is rather rough,” remarked Alan. “I never was that.”
“All bachelors are satellites in the nature of things—satellites to
other men’s wives.”
“Have you a vacancy?” said Alan.
The turn of the talk put Alix in her element. She had never been
an ingénue. She had been born with an intuitive defense. Finesse
was her motto, and artificiality was her foil. It had never been struck
from her hands. On the other hand, Alan knew that every woman
who accepts battle can be reached, even if not conquered. It is the
approaches to her heart that a woman must defend. Once those are
passed, the citadel turns traitor.
They both knew they were embarking upon a dangerous game,
but Alix had played it often. No pretty woman takes her European
degree without ample occasion for practice, and Alix had been
through the European mill. She threw out her daintily shod feet as
she walked. She was full of life. She felt like skipping. The light of
battle danced merrily in her eyes. She made no other reply.
“I met lots of people we both know,” she said at last.
“Which one of them passed on the news that I had taken to the
ways of a wild beast?”
“Oh, that was the Honorable Percy. I caught only a few words.
He was telling about a man known as Ten Per Cent. Wayne and the
only time he’d ever seen the shirt-sleeve policy work with natives.
When I learned it was Africa, I linked up with you at once and
screamed, and he turned to me and said, ‘You know Mr. Wayne?’
And I said I had thought I did, but I found I only knew him tiré à
quatre épingles, and wouldn’t he draw his picture over again. But
just then Lady Merle signaled the retreat, and when the men came
out, somebody else snaffled Collingeford before I got a chance.”
“Oh, Collingeford,” said Alan. “I remember.” He frowned and was
silent.
“Alan,” said Alix after a moment, “let me warn you. I see a new
tendency in you, but before it goes any further than a tendency, let
me tell you that a thoughtful man is a most awful bore. When I
caught sight of you I thought, ‘What a delightful little party!’ But if
you’re going to be pensive, there are others—”
Alan glanced at her.
“Alix,” he said, mimicking her tone, “I see in you the makings of
an altogether charming woman. I’m not speaking of the painstaking
veneer,—I suppose you need that in your walk of life,—but what’s
under it. There may be others, as you say,—pretty women have
taken to wearing men for bangles,—but don’t you make a mistake.
I’m not a bangle. I’ve just come from the unclothed world of real
things. To me a man is just a man, and, what’s more, a woman is
just a woman.”
“How un-American!” said Alix.
“It’s more than that,” said Alan; “it’s pre-American.”
Alix was thoughtful in her turn. Alan caught her by the arm and
turned her toward the west. A yawl was just crossing the disk of the
disappearing sun. Alix felt a thrill at his touch.
“It’s a sweet little picture, isn’t it?” she said. “But you mustn’t
touch me, Alan. It can’t be good for us.”
“So you feel it, too,” said Alan, and took his hand from her arm.
During the voyage they were much together, not in dark corners,
but waging their battle in the open—two swimmers that fought each
other, forgetting to fight the tide that was bearing them out to sea.
Alan was not a philanderer to snatch an unrequited kiss. To him a
kiss was the seal on surrender. But to Alix the game was its own
goal. As she had always played it, nobody had ever really won
anything. However, it did not take her long to appreciate that in Alan
she had an opponent who was constantly getting under her guard
and making her feel things—things that were alarming in
themselves, like the jump of one’s heart into the throat or the
intoxication that goes with hot, racing blood.
Alan’s power over women was in voice and words. If he had been
hideous, it would have been the same. With his tongue he carried
Alix away, and gave her that sense of isolation which lulls a woman
into laxity. One night as they sat side by side, a single great rug
across their knees, Alan laid his hand under cover on hers. A quiver
went through Alix’s body. Her closed hand stirred nervously, but she
did not really draw it away.
“Alan,” she said, “I’ve told you not to. Please don’t! It’s common
—this sort of thing.”
Alan tightened his grip.
“You say it’s common,” he said, “because you’ve never thought it
out. Lightning was common till somebody thought it out. I sit beside
you without touching you, and we are in two worlds. I grip your
hand like this, and the abyss between us is closed. While I hold you,
nothing can come between.”
Alix’s hand opened and settled into his. Alan went on:
“Words talk to the mind, but through my hand my body talks to
yours in a language that was old before words were born. If I am
full of dreams of you and a desert island, I don’t have to tell you
about it, because you are with me. The things I want, you want.
There are no other things in life; for while I hold you, our world is
one and it is all ours. Nothing else can reach us.”
For a while they sat silent, then Alix recovered herself.
“After all,” she said, “we’re not on a desert island, but on a ship,
with eyes in every corner.”
Alan leaned toward her.
“But if we were, Alix! If we were on a desert island, you and I—”
For a moment Alix looked into his burning eyes. She felt that
there was fire in her own eyes too—a fire she could not altogether
control. She disengaged herself and sprang up. Alan rose slowly and
stood beside her. He did not look at her parted lips and hot cheeks;
he had suddenly become languid.
“That’s it,” he drawled—“eyes in every corner. I wonder how
many morals would stand without other people’s eyes to prop them
up?”
Alix left him. She felt baffled, as though she had tried desperately
to get a grip on Alan, and her hand had slipped. She felt that it was
essential to get a grip on him. She had never played the losing side
before, and she was troubled.
Premonition does not come to a woman without cause. Toward
the end of the voyage Alix faced, wide-eyed, the revelation that the
stakes of the game she and Alan had played were body and soul.
“Alan,” she said one night, with drooping head, “I’ve had enough.
I don’t want to play any more. I want to quit.” She lifted tear-filled
eyes to him. The foil of artificiality had been knocked from her hand.
She was all woman, and defenseless.
Alan felt a trembling in all his limbs.
“I want to quit, too, Alix,” he said in his low, vibrating voice, “but
I’m afraid we can’t. You see, I’m beaten, too. While I was just in
love with your body, we were safe enough; but now I’m in love with
you. It’s the kind of love a man can pray for in vain. No head in it;
nothing but heart. Honor and dishonor become mere names.
Nothing matters to me but you.”
Drawn by Reginald Birch
“’HE’D SAIL FOR AFRICA TO-MORROW AND THINK FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE
OF HIS ESCAPE FROM YOU AS A CLOSE SHAVE’”

Tears crawled slowly down Alix’s cheeks. She stood with her
elbows on the rail and faced the ocean, so no one might see. Her
hands were locked. In her mind her own thoughts were running.
Somehow she could understand Alan without listening. If only Gerry
had done this thing to her, she was thinking, the pitiless, wracking
misery would have been joy at white heat. She was unmasked at
last; but Gerry had not unmasked her. Not once since the day of the
wreck and their engagement had Gerry unmasked himself.
Alan was standing with his side to the rail, his eyes leaving her
face only to keep track of the promenaders, so that no officious
friend could take her by surprise. He went on talking.
“Our judgment is calling to us to quit, but it is calling from days
ago,” he said. “We wouldn’t listen then, and it’s only the echo we
hear now. We can try to quit if you like; but when I am alone, I shall
call for you, and when you are alone, you will call for me. We shall
always be alone except when we are near each other. We can’t
break the tension, Alix. It will break us in the end.”
The slow tears were still crawling down Alix’s cheeks. In all her
life she had never suffered so before. She felt that each tear paid
the price of all her levity.
“Alan,” she said with a quick glance at him, “did you know when
we began that it was going to be like this?”
“No,” he answered. “I have trifled with many women, and I was
ready to trifle with you. No one had ever driven you, and I wanted
to drive you. I thought I had divorced passion and love. I thought
perhaps you had, too. But love is here. I am not driving you. We are
being driven.”
CHAPTER VII
ALIX and Alan were in the grip of a fever that is hard to break
save through satiety and ruin. They were still held apart by
generations of sound tradition, but against this bulwark the full flood
of modern life, as they lived it, was directed. In Alan there was a
counter-strain, a tradition of passion that predisposed him to accept
the easy tenets of the growing sensual cult. As he found it more and
more difficult to turn his thoughts away from Alix, he strove to
regain the clear-headedness that only a year before had held him
back from definite moral surrender.
With her things had not gone so far. From the security of the
untempted she had watched her chosen world play with fire, and
only now, when temptation assailed her, did she realize the
weakness that lies in every woman once her outposts have fallen
and her bare heart becomes engaged in the battle.
One early morning Nance sent for Alan. He found her alone. She
had been crying. He came to her where she stood by the fire, and
she turned and put her arms around his neck. She tried to smile, but
her lips twitched.
“Alan,” she said, “I want you to go away.”
Alan was touched. He caught her wrists and took her arms from
about his neck.
“You mustn’t do that sort of thing to me, Nance. I’m not fit for it.”
He made her sit down on a great sofa before the fire and sat down
beside her. “You remind me to-day of the most beautiful thing I ever
heard said of you—by a spiteful friend.”
“What was it?” said Nance, turning her troubled eyes to him.
“She said, ‘She is only beautiful in her own home.’ I never
understood it before. It’s a great thing to be beautiful in one’s own
home.”
“Oh, Alan,” said Nance, catching his hand and holding it against
her breast, “it is a great thing. It’s the greatest thing in life. That’s
why I sent for you—because you are wrecking forever your chance
of being beautiful in your own home. And worse than that, you are
wrecking Alix’s chance. Of course you are blind. Of course you are
mad. I understand, Alan, but I want to hold you close to my heart
until you see—until the fever is cooled. You and Alix cannot do this
thing. It isn’t as though her people and ours were of the froth of the
nation. You and she started life with nothing but Puritan to build on.
You may have built just play-houses of sand, but deep down the old
rock foundation must endure. You must take your stand on that.”
Her eyes had been fixed in the fire, but now she turned them to
his face. Alan sat with head hanging forward, his gaze and thoughts
far beyond the confines of the room. Then he shook himself and got
up to go.
“I wish we could, Nance,” he said gravely, and then added half to
himself, half to her, “I’ll try.”
For some days Alan had been prepared to go away and take Alix
with him, should she consent. Upon his arrival he had had an
interview with McDale & McDale, in the course of which that firm
opened its eyes and its pocket wider than it ever had before.
“You are out for money, Mr. Wayne,” had been the feeble
remonstrance of the senior member.
“Just money,” replied Alan. “If you owed as much as I do, you
would be out for it, too. Of course you’re not. What do you want?
You’ve got my guaranty—ten per cent. under office estimates for
work and time.”
When Alan left McDale & McDale’s offices he had contracted
more or less on his own terms, and McDale, Jr., said to the senior:
“He’s only twenty-six—a boy. How did he beat us?”
“By beating Walton’s record first,” replied McDale, Sr. “And how
he did that, time will show.”
As he walked slowly back from Nance’s, Alan was thinking that,
after all, there was no reason why he should not cut and run—no
reason except Alix.
He reached his rooms. As he crossed the threshold a premonition
seized him. He felt as though some one were there. He glanced
hurriedly about. The rooms were still in the disorder in which he had
left them, and they were empty. Then he saw that he had stepped
on a note that had been dropped through the letter-slip. He picked it
up. A thrill went through him as he recognized Alix’s handwriting.
There was no stamp. It must have been delivered by hand. He tore
it open and read: “You said that a moment’s notice was all you
asked. I will take the Montreal express with you to-day.”
Alan’s blood turned to liquid fire. The note conjured before him a
vision of Alix. He crushed it, and held it to his lips and laughed, not
jeeringly, but in pure, uncontrolled excitement.

IT was not a coincidence that Gerry had sought out Alix at the
very hour that Nance was summoning Alan. Gerry and Nance were
driven by the same forewarning of catastrophe. Gerry had felt it
first, but he had been slow to believe, slower to act. He had no
precedent for this sort of thing. His whole being was in revolt against
the situation in which he found himself. It was after a sleepless
night, a most unheard of thing with him, that he decided he could
let things go no longer. He went to Alix’s room, knocked, and
entered.
Alix was up, though the hour was early for her. Fresh from her
bath, she sat in a sheen of blue dressing-gown before the mirror
doing her own hair. Gerry glanced about him and into the bath-
room, looking for the maid.
“Good morning,” said Alix. “She’s not here. Did you want to see
her?”
Gerry winced at the levity. He wondered how Alix could play the
game she was playing and be gay. Alix finished doing her hair.
“There,” she said with a final pat, and turned to face Gerry.
He was standing beside an open window. He could feel the cold
air on his hands. He felt like putting his head out into it. His head
was hot.
“Alix,” he said suddenly without looking at her, “I want you to
drop Alan.”
“But I don’t want to drop Alan,” replied Alix, lightly.
Gerry whirled around at her tone. His nostrils were quivering. To
his amazement, his hands fairly itched to clutch her beautiful throat.
He could hardly control his voice.
“Stop playing, Alix,” he gulped. “There’s never been a divorcée
among the Lansings nor a wife-beater, and one is as near this room
as the other right now.”
Gerry regretted the words as soon as he had said them, but Alix
was not angry. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. She
speculated on the sensation of being once again roughly handled by
this rock of a man. Only once before had she seen Gerry angry and
the sight had fascinated her then, as it did now. There was
something tremendous and impressive in his anger and struggle for
control—a great torrent held back by a great strong dam. She almost
wished it would break through. She could almost find it in her to
throw herself on the flood and let it carry her whither it would. She
said nothing.
Gerry bit his lips and turned from her.
“And Alan, of all men!” he went on. At the words the current of
her thoughts was changed. She found herself suddenly on the
defensive. “Do you think you are the first woman he has played with
and betrayed?” Gerry’s lip was curved to a sneer. “A philanderer, a
man who surrounds himself with tarnished reputations.”
A dull glow came into Alix’s cheeks.
“Philanderers are of many breeds,” she said. “There are those
who have the wit to philander with woman, and those who can rise
only to a whisky or a golf-club. Whatever else Alan may be, he is not
a time-server.”
Once aroused, Alix had taken up the gantlet with no uncertain
hand. Her first words carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and
they were barbed.
“What do you mean?” said Gerry, dully. He had not anticipated a
defense.
“I mean what you might have deduced with an effort. What are
you but a philanderer in little things where Alan is in great? What
have you ever done to hold me or any other woman? I respected
you once for what you were going to be. That has died. Did you
think I was going to make you into a man?”
Gerry stood, breathing hard, a great despondency in his heart.
Alix went on pitilessly:
“What have you become? A monumental time-server on the
world, and you are surprised that a worker reaches the prize that
you can not attain! ‘All things come to him who waits.’ That’s a trite
saying; but how about this? There are lots of things that come to
him who only waits that he could do without. The trouble with you is
that you have built your life altogether on traditions. It is a tradition
that your women are faithful; so you need not exert yourself to
holding yours. It is a tradition that you can do no wrong; so you
need not exert yourself to doing anything at all. You are playing with
ghosts, Gerry. Your party was over a generation ago.”
Alix had calmed down. There was still time for Gerry to choke her
to good effect. The hour could yet be his. But he did not know it.
Smarting under the lash of Alix’s tongue, he made a final and
disastrous false step.
“You try to humiliate me by placing me back to back with Alan?”
he said, with his new-born sneer. Alix appraised it with calm eyes,
and found it rather attractive. “Well, let me tell you that Alan is so
small a man that if I dropped out of the world to-day, he’d sail for
Africa to-morrow and think for the rest of his life of his escape from
you as a close shave.”
Alix sprang to her feet. She was trembling. Gerry felt a throb of
exultation. It was his turn to wound.
“What do you mean?” said Alix, very quietly; but it was the quiet
of suppressed passion at white heat.
“I mean that Alan is the kind of man who finds other men’s wives
an economy. He would take everything you have that’s worth taking,
but not you.”
Alix’s eyes blazed at him from her white face. “Please go away,”
she said. He started to speak. “Please go away,” she repeated. Her
lips were quivering, and her face twitched in a way that was
terrifying to Gerry. He hurried out, repeating to himself over and
over: “You have made Alix cry. You have made Alix cry.”
Alix toyed with the silver on her dressing-table until he had gone,
and then she swept across the room to her little writing-desk and
wrote the note that Alan had found half an hour later in his rooms.
CHAPTER VIII
GERRY stood in the hall outside Alix’s room for a moment, hoping
to hear a sob, a cry, anything for an excuse to go back. Instead he
heard the scratch of a pen; but he was too troubled to deduce
anything from that. He went slowly down the stairs and out into the
street. The biting winter air braced him. He started to walk rapidly.
At the end of an hour he found himself standing on a deserted pier.
He took off his hat and let the wind cool his head.
“I have been a brute,” he said to himself. “I have made a woman
cry—Alix!” He turned and walked slowly back to the avenue and into
his club, but he still felt uneasy. A waiter brought a whisky and soda
and put it at his elbow. Gerry turned on him.
“Who told you to bring that?” Then he felt ashamed of his
petulance. “It’s all right, George,” he said more genially than he had
spoken for many a day; “but I don’t want it. Take it away.”
He sat for a long time, and at last came to a resolution. Alix loved
roses. He would send her enough to bank her room, and he would
follow them home. He went up the avenue to his florist’s, and stood
outside trying to decide whether it should be one mass of blood red
or a color scheme. Suddenly the plate glass caught a reflection and
threw it in his face. Gerry turned. A four-wheeler was passing. He
could not see the occupant, but on top was a large, familiar trunk
marked with a yellow girdle. On the trunk was a familiar label. He
stared at it, and the label stared back at him, and finally danced
before his mazed eyes as the cab disappeared into the traffic.
Gerry stood for a long while, stunned. He saw a lady bow to him
from a carriage, and afterward he remembered that he had not
bowed back. Somebody ran into him. He looked back at the flowers
massed in the window, remembered that he did not need them now,
and drew slowly away. Two men hailed him from the other side of
the street. Gerry braced himself, nodded to them, and hailed a
passing hansom. From the direction Alix’s cab had taken he knew
the station for which she was bound. As he arrived on the platform
they were giving the last call for the Montreal express. He caught
sight of Alix hurrying through the gates, and followed. As she
reached the first Pullman, somebody rapped on the window of the
drawing-room. Gerry saw Alan’s face pressed against the pane. He
watched Alix stop, turn, and climb the steps of the car, and then he
wheeled and hurried from the station.
Where could he go? Not to his club and Alan’s. His face would
betray the scandal with which the club would be buzzing to-morrow.
Not to his big, comfortable house. It would be too gloomy. Even in
disaccord, Alix had imparted to its somber oak and deep shadows
the glow of buoyant life. When she was there, one felt as though
there were flowers in the house. Gerry was seized with a great
desire to hide from his world, his mother, himself. He pictured the
scare-heads in the papers. That the name of Lansing should be
found in that galley! It was too much. He could not face it.
He bought a morning paper, full of shipping news, and, getting
into a taxi, gave the address of his bank. On the way he studied the
sailings’ column. He found what he wanted—the Gunter, due to sail
that afternoon for Brazil, Pernambuco the first stop.
At the bank Gerry drew out the balance of his current account. It
amounted to something over two thousand dollars. He took most of
it in Bank of England notes. Then he started home to pack, but
before he reached the house a vision of the servants, flurried after
helping their mistress off, commiserating him to one another, pitying
him to his face perhaps, or, in the case of the old butler, suppressing
a great emotion, was too much for him. He drove instead to a big
department store, and in an hour had bought a complete outfit. He
lunched at one of the quiet restaurants that divide down-town from
up-town.
He had avoided buying a ticket. As the Gunter warped out, the
purser came to him.
“I understand you have no ticket.”
“No,” said Gerry, drawing a roll of bills. “How much is the passage
to Pernambuco?”
The purser fidgeted.
“This is irregular, sir,” he said.
“Is it?” said Gerry, indifferently.
“I have no ticket-forms,” said the purser, weakening.
“I don’t want a ticket,” said Gerry. “I want a good room and three
square meals a day.”
Long, quiet days on a quiet sea are a master sedative to a
troubled mind. Gerry had a great deal to think through. He sat by
the hour with hands loosely clasped, his eyes far out on the ocean,
tracing the course of his married life, and measuring the grounds for
Alix’s arraignment. Gerry was just and generous to others’ faults, but
not to his own. He had forgotten the sting of Alix’s words, and, to his
growing amazement, saw in himself their justification. A time-server
he certainly had been.
The landfall of Pernambuco awoke him from reveries and
introspection. He did not look upon this palm-strewn coast as a land
of new beginnings; he sought merely a Lethean shore.
The ship crawled in from an oily sea to the long strip of harbor
behind the reef. Above, the sun blazed from a bowl of unbroken
blue; on land, the multicolored houses spread like a rainbow under a
dark cloud of brown-tiled roofs. Beyond the trees was a line of high,
stuccoed houses, each painted a different color, all weather-stained,
and some with rusted balconies that threatened to topple on to the
passer-by. One bore the legend, “Hôtel d’Europe.” There Gerry
installed himself.
CHAPTER IX
BETWEEN the hour of writing her note to Alan and the moment
when she stepped on the train Alix had had no time to think. She
was still driven by the impulse of anger that Gerry’s words had
aroused. She did not reflect that the wound was only to her pride.
Alan held open the door of the drawing-room. She passed in, and
he closed it. She did not feel as though she were in a train. On the
little table stood a vase. It held a single perfect rose. Under the vase
was a curious doily, strayed from Alan’s collection of exotic things. A
cushion lay tossed on the green sofa, not a new cushion, but one
that had been broken in to comforting. Alix took in every detail of
the arrangement of the tiny room with her first breath. What
forethought, what a note of rest with which to meet a troubled and
hurried heart! But how insidious to frame an ignoble flight in such a
homelike setting! She felt a slight revolt at the travesty.
Alan was standing with blazing eyes and working face, like an
eager hound in leash. Alix threw back her veil and looked at him.
With a quick stride forward he caught her to him, and kissed her
mouth until she gasped for breath. With a flash she remembered his
own words, “If ever I kiss you, I shall bring your soul out between
your lips.” To Alix’s amazement, she did not feel an answering fire.
Her body was being lashed with a living flame, and her body was
cold. In that instant this seemed a terrible thing. She had sold her
birthright for a price, and the price was turning to dead leaves. She
made an effort to kiss Alan in return, but with the effort shame came
over her. There was so much in Alan’s kiss! The kiss had brought her
soul out between her lips. Her soul stood naked before her, and
one’s naked soul is an ugly thing. The kiss disrobed her, too, and
from that last bourn of shame Alix suddenly revolted.
Gasping, she pushed Alan from her. Their eyes met. His were
burning, hers were frightened. She moved slowly backward to the
door, and with her hand behind her opened the latch. Alan did not
move. He knew that if he could not hold her with his eyes, he could
not hold her at all. The train started. Alix passed through the door
and rushed to the platform. The porter was about to drop the trap
on the steps. Alix slipped by him. With all her force she pushed open
the door and jumped. The train was moving very slowly, but Alix
reeled, and would have fallen had it not been for a passing
baggageman. He caught her, and still in his arms, Alix looked back.
Alan’s white face was at the window. He looked steadily at her.
“Ye almost wint with him, miss,” said the baggageman, with a full
brogue and a twinkling eye.
Alix was tired and hungry when she got back home, but
excitement kept her up. She felt that she stood on the threshold of
new effort and a new life. After all, she thought, it was she who had
made her dear old Gerry into a time-server. She could have made
him into anything else if she had tried. She longed to tell him so.
Perhaps he would catch her and crush her in his arms as Alan had
done. She laughed at herself for wanting him to. She rang for the
butler.
“Where’s your master, John?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. Mr. Gerry hasn’t come back since he went
out this morning.” To John, Mr. Lansing was a person who had been
dead for some time. His present overlords were Mr. and Mrs. Gerry
and Mrs. Lansing when she was in town.
“Telephone to the club, and if he is there, tell him I want to see
him,” said Alix, and turned to her welcome tea. The sandwiches
seemed unusually small to her ravenous appetite.
Gerry was not at the club. Alix dressed resplendently for dinner.
Never had she dressed for any other man with the care that she
dressed for Gerry that night. But Gerry did not come. At half-past
nine Alix ordered the table cleared.
“I’ll not dine to-night,” she said to John. “When your master
comes, show him in here.” She sat on in the library, listening for
Gerry’s step in the hall.
From time to time John came into the room to replenish the fire.
On one of these occasions Alix told him he might go to bed; but an
hour later he returned and stood in the door. Alix looked very small,
curled up in a great leathern chair by the fire.
“It’s after one o’clock, ma’am,” said John. “Mr. Gerry won’t be
coming in to-night.” Alix made no answer. John held his ground. “It’s
time for you to go to bed, ma’am. Shall I call the maid?”
It was a long time since John had taken any apparent interest in
his mistress. Alix had avoided him. She had felt that the old servant
disapproved of her. More than once she had thought of discharging
him, but he had never given her grounds that would justify her
before Gerry. Now he was ordering her to bed, and instead of being
angry, she was soothed. She wondered how she could ever have
thought of discharging him. He seemed strong and restful, more like
part of the old house than a servant. Alix got up.
“No, don’t call the maid. I won’t need her,” she said. Then she
added, “Good night, John,” as she passed out.
John held wide the door, and bowed with a deference that was a
touch more sincere than usual. “Good night,” he answered, as
though he meant it.
Alix was exhausted, but it was long before she fell asleep. She
cried softly. She wanted to be comforted. She had dressed so
beautifully, she had been so beautiful, and Gerry had not come
home. As she cried, her disappointment grew into a great trouble.
She awoke early from a feverish sleep. Immediately a sense of
weight assailed her. She rang, and learned that Gerry had not yet
come home. Then his words of yesterday suddenly came to her, “If I
dropped out of the world to-day—” Alix stared wide-eyed at the
ceiling. Why had she remembered those words? She lay for a long
time, thinking. Her breakfast was brought to her, but she did not
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