Question

Which trial’s cart has the greatest momentum at the bottom of the ramp?

Answer 1

The momentum of each cart is given by:
$p=mv$
where
m is the mass of the cart
v is its velocity (at the bottom of the ramp)

To answer the problem, let's calculate the momentum of each of the 4 carts:
1) $p=(200 kg)(6.5 m/s)=1300 kg m/s$
2) $p=(220 kg)(5.0 m/s)=1100 kg m/s$
3) $p=(240 kg)(6.4 m/s)= 1536 kg m/s$
4) $p=(260 kg)(4.8 m/s)=1248 kg m/s$

Therefore, the cart with greatest momentum is cart 3, so the right answer is
- trial 3, because this trial has a large mass and a large velocity