Question

Here is the situation: A puck is resting on the floor of a large moving van. Assume that the floor of the van is frictionless. The van and the puck are initially at rest, then the van undergoes a positive uniform acceleration. Determine whether each statement below is:a. True b. False.

Answer 1

Answer:

Statement 1: Someone outside the van sees the puck remain stationary with respect to the ground.

TRUE. This is because the puck relative to the ground initially was stationary. When the van starts to move forward or accelerate, the puck will tend to maintain its stationary state with the ground by moving in the opposite direction. This movement is only relative to the van and not the ground because the puck and the ground are at rest as the puck has no net force acting on it.

Someone in the van sees the puck move toward the front of the van.

FALSE. The puck has no net force acting in it so by newton's first law it should have no relative movement to the ground. In order to achieve this, the puck by newton's third law of motion must move in the opposite direction (backwards) as the van to maintain its stationary state with the ground.

The acceleration of the van with respect to the ground is > the acceleration of the puck with respect to the ground.

If the van turns to the right, the puck will hit the left wall.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE STATEMENTS? I'll assume the truck continues in a straight line and this statement if irrelevant. It does say "If"

The magnitude of the acceleration of the van with respect to the ground is = the magnitude of the puck's acceleration with respect to the van.

The puck is stationary with respect to the van during this acceleration.

FALSE

Explanation: