Question

Two titanium spheres approach each other head-on with the same speed and collide elastically. After the collision, one of the spheres, whose mass is 210 g, remains at rest. (a) What is the mass (in g) of the other sphere?
(b) What is the speed of the two-sphere center of mass if the initial speed of each sphere is 1.6 m/s?

Answer 1

I know i did part a correctly. heres what i did: momentum is conserved: m1 * u - m2 * u = m2 * v or (m1 - m2) * u = m2 * v Also, for an elastic head-on collision, we know that the relative velocity of approach = relative velocity of separation (from conservation of energy), or, for this problem, 2u = v Then (m1 - m2) * u = m2 * 2u m1 - m2 = 2 * m2 m1 = 3 * m2 m1 is the sphere that remained at rest (hence its absence from the RHS), so m2 = 0.3kg / 3 m2 = 0.1 kg b) this part confuses me, heres what i did (m1 - m2) * u = m2 * v (.3kg - .1kg)(2.0m/s) = .1kg * v .4 kg = .1 v v = 4 m/s What my teacher did: (.3g - .1g) * 2.0m/s = (.3g + .1g) * v I understand the left hand side but i dont get the right hand side. Why is m1 added to m2 when m1 is at rest which makes its v = zero?? v = +1.00m/s since the answer is positive, what does that mean? Also, if v was -1.00m/s what would that mean? thanks!

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/elastic-collision-with-conservation-of-momentum-problem.651261...