Question

A charging bull elephant with a mass of 5240 kg comes directly toward youwith a speed of 4.55 m/s. You toss a 0.150- kg rubber ball at the elephant with a speed of 7.81 m/s. (a)When the ball bounces back toward you, what is its speed? (b) How do you account for the fact that theball’s kinetic energy has increased?

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

mass of elephant, m1 = 5240 kg

mass of ball, m2 = 0.150 kg

initial velocity of elephant, u1 = - 4.55 m/s

initial velocity of ball, u2 = 7.81 m/s

Let the final velocity of ball is v2.

Use the formula of collision

$v_{2}=\left ( \frac{2m_{1}}{m_{1}+m_{2}} \right )u_{1}+\left ( \frac{m_{2}-m_{1}}{m_{1}+m_{2}} \right )u_{2}$

$v_{2}=\left ( \frac{2\times 5240}{5240+0.150} \right )(-4.55)+\left ( \frac{0.15-5240}{5240+0.150} \right )(7.81)$

v2 = - 16.9 m/s

The negative sign shows that the ball bounces back towards you.

(b) It is clear that the velocity of ball increases and hence the kinetic energy of the ball increases. This gain in energy is due to the energy from elephant.