Find the magnitude of the final velocity of the 0.146 kg glider.?

Question

A glider of mass 0.146 kg is moving to the right on a frictionless, horizontal air track with a speed of 0.750 m/s . It has a head-on collision with a glider 0.300 kg that is moving to the left with a speed of 2.23 m/s. Suppose the collision is elastic.

Find the magnitude of the final velocity of the 0.146 kg glider.

Answer 1

In an elastic collision, momentum in either direction is conserved. However, since the masses in rebound posess the momentum of the other mass, the velocities will differ. That's the physics, now the math.

Let Mr = momentum to the right
Let Ml = momentum to the left:
Ml = 2.23 x 0.3 = 0.669 kg-m/sec.
rebound vl = momentum/mass = 0.669/0.146 =
4.4 m/sec appx.