Question

A car accelerates from rest along a straight road. as it accelerates, the magnitude of the car's momentum changes by a certain amount. by how much does the magnitude of the momentum of the earth itself change? 1. we need more information about the force of friction between tires and road that accelerated the car. 2. a much larger amount since the earth has a much larger mass 3. the same amount 4. a much smaller amount since the earth has a much larger mass 5. none of these

Answer 1

The answer would be the same amount. The system of car and earth is a roughly isolated system during the short time of acceleration (disregarding the rotation of the earth around its axis and its motion around the sun during this brief prompt). Therefore the net force on the system of car and road is zero, and the magnitude of alteration of momentum of both the car and the earth is the alike.