Question

While chopping down his father's cherry tree, george discovered that if he swung the axe with a speed of 25 m/s, it would embed itself 2.3 cm into the tree before coming to a stop. if the axe head had a mass of 2.5 kg, how much force was the axe exerting on the tree?

Answer 1

First we must find the amount of acceleration needed using the equation Vfinal^2 = Vinitial^2 + 2*Acceleration*distance => 0 = 25^2 + 2*Acceleration*0.025m => Acceleration = 13,587m/s^2. Plug this into Force = Mass*Acceleration equation => Force = 2.5*13,587 = 33,967.5N.