Question

A box of mass 26 kg is initially at rest on a flat floor. The coefficient of kinetic friction between the box and the floor is 0.60. A woman pushes horizontally against the box with a force of 505 N until the box attains a speed of 2 m/s. What is the change in kinetic energy of the box?

Answer 1

Answer:

$\Delta K = 52J$

Explanation:

The change in kinetic energy will be simply the difference between the final and initial kinetic energies: $\Delta K=K_f-K_i$

We know that the formula for the kinetic energy for an object is:

$K=\frac{mv^2}{2}$

where m is the mass of the object and v its velocity.

For our case then we have:

$\Delta K = K_f-K_i=\frac{mv_f^2}{2}-\frac{mv_i^2}{2}=\frac{m(v_f^2-v_i^2)}{2}$

Which for our values is:

$\Delta K = \frac{m(v_f^2-v_i^2)}{2} = \frac{(26Kg)((2m/s)^2-(0m/s)^2)}{2} = 52J$