Question

An unnamed professor is walking to class when an office chair (travelling in the same direction) collides with them. The professor fails into the chair and remains in the chair after collision. The professor, with a mass of 113kg, is travelling at 1.56 m/s. The chair has a velocity of 6.5 m/s, and a mass of 10kg. After the collision, and ignoring any effects of professor falling, what would be the speed of the chair professor system

Answer 1

Answer: 1.96 m/s

Explanation:

Given

Mass of Professor $m_1=113\ kg$

Velocity of professor $u_1=1.56\ m/s$

mass of chair $m_2=10\ kg$

velocity of chair $u_2=6.5\ m/s$

Suppose  after the collision, v is the common velocity

Conserving momentum

$\Rightarrow m_1u_1+m_2u_2=(m_1+m_2)v\\\\\Rightarrow v=\dfrac{113\times 1.56+10\times 6.5}{113+10}=\dfrac{241.28}{123}\\\\\Rightarrow v=1.96\ m/s$