The speed of the robber is 85 mph.
The robber does not accelerate during the chase.
The initial velocity of the motorcycle is 0 mph.
The motorcycle accelerates at 3.0 ft/second^2.
There are 5280 feet in 1 mile.
There are 3600 seconds in 1 hour.
Increment the time by every 5 seconds from 0 to 500 sec
2007-03-10 04:50:46 · 2 answers · asked by lank s 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
Assuming that the police offcicer starts accelderating as soon as the robber passes him, he will catch up with the motorcyclist as soon as the police officers average speed since he took off is the average speed of the robber. This is not really a realistic scenario but that is ok. Because his acceleration is constant, once the police officer is going 170mph, his average speed since he left at 0mph will be 85 and he will then be caught up with the robber. Now we need to convert 3ft/second^2 into mph/second. (3/5280)*3600 = acceleration in mph, which = 2.04545mph/second. 170/2.04545 = the time in seconds it takes him to catch up, which is 83.11 seconds. I am about 85% confident that this is the right answer.
2007-03-10 05:08:27 · answer #1 · answered by skooltransformer 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
So, apparently, they start at the same point and time. So equate the distance travelled by each and solve the equation for the time:
vel*time = 1/2*acc*time^2
2007-03-10 12:56:48 · answer #2 · answered by arbiter007 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋