Two masses, each weighing 1.0 × 103 kilograms and moving with the same speed of 12.5 meters/second, are approaching each other.
They have a head-on collision and bounce off away from each other. Assuming this is a perfectly elastic collision, what will be the approximate kinetic energy of the system after the collision? A. 1.6 × 105 joules
B. 2.5 × 105 joules
C. 1.2 × 103 joules
D. 2.5 × 103 joules ...?
A perfectly elastic<span> collision is defined as one in which there is no loss of </span>kinetic energy<span> in the collision. Therefore, we just add the kinetic energies of each system. We calculate as follows:
KE = 0.5(</span>1.0 × 10^3)(12.5 )^2 + 0.5(1.0 × 10^3)(12.5 )^2 KE = 156250 J = 1.6 x 10^5 J -------> OPTION A
G is the gravitational constant, which is approximately 6.6x10^-11 Nm/s^2. It has the same value regardless of the masses of both objects or the distance between them.
