A Puerto Rican professor of physics visits in the month of January and her colleagues offer to take her ice skating for the first time in her life. She has gotten herself into the middle of an ice rink and cannot figure out how to make the skates work. Every move she tries to make simply causes her to slip on the ice and leaves her in the same place she started. She decides that she can get off the ice by taking off her coat and throwing it in the opposite direction.
a.) Suppose she has a mass of 55 kg and her coat has a mass of 4.5 kg. If she bundles it up and throws it as hard as she can away from her, it leaves her hand with a speed of 3 m/s, moving to our left. Assuming that we choose a coordinate system with the positive-x direction point to our right, what is her velocity?
2007-03-28 12:43:44 · 1 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Conservation of momentum
momentum before = momentum after
m1*u1 + m2*u2 = m1*v1 + m2*v2
0 + 0 = 4.5 kg*3 m/s + 55 kg*v2
Solve for v2.
2007-03-28 13:56:28 · answer #1 · answered by sojsail 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋