On a frictionless horizontal air table, puck A (with mass 0.371 kg) is moving toward puck B (with mass 0.251 kg), which is initially at rest. After the collision, puck A has velocity 0.121 m/s to the left, and puck B has velocity 0.652 m/s to the right.
What was the speed v_Ai of puck A before the collision?
Calculate DeltaK, the change in the total kinetic energy of the system that occurs during the collision.
2006-11-05 10:09:20 · 1 answers · asked by darkangelwattitude 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Use the conservation of momentum. Calculate the momentum of puck A and momentum of puck B after the collision. Do a vector addition of this momentum to get the total momentum of puck A before the collision. This will give you the velocity of puck A before the collision allowing you to calculate the kinetic energy before the collision. You also have the velocity and masses to calculate the kinetic energy after the collision.
Equations:
momentum is mass * velocity
energy is mass * velocity ^ 2 / 2
2006-11-05 10:22:01 · answer #1 · answered by rscanner 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋