A 400-kg stopped at an intersection is rear-ended by a 1600-kg truck moving at 10 m/s. If the car was in neutral and the brakes were off, so that the collision is approximately elastic, find final velocity of the car if the truck was moving 5 m/s after the collision.

Question

Aileen Sweeney

Physics

2 August, 18:37

A 400-kg stopped at an intersection is rear-ended by a 1600-kg truck moving at 10 m/s. If the car was in neutral and the brakes were off, so that the collision is approximately elastic, find final velocity of the car if the truck was moving 5 m/s after the collision.

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Carter Franco · Answer 1

The sum of the momenta before and after the collision will be the same. Before the car's momentum was 0 and the truck's was P=mv, P=1600*10=16000kgm/s

Afterward the truck has momentum P=1600*5=8000kgm/s

So the car gets the rest of what we started with Pcar = (16000-8000) = 8000kgm/s

So the car's velocity was Pcar=mv, Pcar/m = v, 8000/400=20m/s