Car A rear ends Car B, which has twice the mass of A, on an icy road at a speed low enough so that the collision is essentially
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a) 32 kg m/s
Assuming the spring is initially at rest, the total momentum of the system before the collision is given only by the momentum of the bowling ball:
The ball bounces off at the same speed had before, but the new velocity has a negative sign (since the direction is opposite to the initial direction). So, the new momentum of the ball is:
The final momentum after the collision is the sum of the momenta of the ball and off the spring:
where is the momentum of the spring. For the conservation of momentum,
b) -32 kg m/s
The change in momentum of bowling ball is given by the difference between its final momentum and initial momentum:
c) 64 N
The change in momentum is equal to the product between the average force and the time of the interaction:
Since we know , we can find the magnitude of the force:
The negative sign simply means that the direction of the force is opposite to the initial direction of the ball.
d) The force calculated in the previous step (64 N) is larger than the force of 32 N.
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