Q. A mass is sliding down an incline. As the angle for the incline increases, the magnitude of the component of weight perpendicular to incline:-
Increases
Decreases
Increase then decrease
Decrease then increase
it varies as cosine...decreases to 90 degrees
The magnitude of the component of weight perpendicular to the incline decreases as the angle of the incline increases.
To understand why, we need to consider the forces acting on the mass sliding down the incline. The two main forces at play are the gravitational force (or weight) acting vertically downward and the normal force acting perpendicular to the incline.
As the angle of the incline increases, the weight can be broken down into two components: one parallel to the incline (mg*sinθ) and one perpendicular to the incline (mg*cosθ), where m is the mass and g is the acceleration due to gravity.
Since we're interested in the component of weight perpendicular to the incline, we need to look at mg*cosθ. As the incline angle increases, cosθ decreases. This means that the magnitude of the weight component perpendicular to the incline decreases as well.
To visualize this, imagine a steeper incline. The weight vector would be tilted more, resulting in a smaller component that is perpendicular to the incline.
Therefore, the correct answer is: Decreases.