All AP Physics 1 Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #41 : Impulse And Momentum
Deep in space Object has mass and is initially traveling with velocity . At , it collides with Object , which has mass and is initially motionless. The two objects stick together.
Determine the initial momentum of the system.
Impossible to determine
None of these
Using
Plugging in values:
Example Question #41 : Impulse And Momentum
Deep in space Object has mass and is initially traveling with velocity . At , it collides with Object , which has mass and is initially motionless. The two objects stick together.
Determine the impulse experienced by Object
None of these
Using
Plugging in values:
The momentum will be the same in the final state, so again using
Solving for velocity:
Plugging in values (the total mass is equal to the combined masses:
Definition of impulse:
Example Question #43 : Impulse And Momentum
A ball of mass is thrown at a target. The ball strikes with a velocity of and bounces back with equal magnitude. Determine the magnitude of impulse experienced by the ball.
Impulse is defined as change in momentum:
Using
Combining equations:
Plugging in values:
Example Question #44 : Impulse And Momentum
Frictionless cart is traveling at when it hits identical frictionless cart which was previously motionless. After the collision, cart is traveling at . Determine the final velocity of cart .
None of these
Using conservation of momentum:
Solving for
Using (since the carts are identical):
Plugging in values:
Example Question #42 : Impulse And Momentum
During time period , a rocket ship deep in space of mass travels from to . During time period , the rocket fires. During time period , the rocket travels from to .
Time periods , , and all took
Determine the impulse during time period .
None of these
Finding initial momentum:
Combining equations:
Plugging in values:
Combining equations:
Converting to and plugging in values:
Using
Plugging in values:
Example Question #46 : Impulse And Momentum
Ty throws a snowball directly at his brother who also throws a snowball directly at Ty with a mass of , because he dipped it in a bucket of water. Ty throws his snowball at and his brother throws his at and the two snowballs make perfect contact in mid flight, causing a perfectly inelastic collision. Neglecting air resistance, what is the combined final speed of the snowballs and their direction following the collision?
; negative x-direction
; positive x-direction
; negative x-direction
; positive x-direction
; negative x-direction
Use the conservation of momentum for inelastic collisions (objects that stick together).
Plug in and solve for the final velocity.
The final velocity of the combined snowballs is in the negative x-direction.
Example Question #47 : Impulse And Momentum
On a toy car set, two children apply a piece of double sided tape to the front of two toy cars so that when they collide they will stick together causing a perfectly inelastic collision. The two identical cars have a combined mass of and their final combined speed was in the rightward direction. If car "A" was shot to the right with a speed measured at right before the collision . At what speed was the other car traveling right before the collision?
Use the conservation of momentum, perfectly inelastic collision.
Plug in and solve for the speed of car B.
The velocity of car B right before the collision was .
Example Question #48 : Impulse And Momentum
A spaceship is stationary deep in space with it’s rocket broken. The crew decides to propel it to earth by throwing tennis balls out the back window. If they throw one tennis ball every second at , how many balls will it take the ship to reach ? Each tennis ball has a mass of and the ship has a mass of .
None of these
The net momentum of the system needs to stay constant, that is, any momentum given to the tennis balls, the space ship must gain in the opposite direction.
Where
is the mass of the ship.
is the velocity of the ship
is the number of balls thrown
is the mass of a ball
is the velocity of a thrown ball
Solving for
Since the velocities are given as magnitudes, the negative sign can be ignored
Plugging in values
Example Question #231 : Linear Motion And Momentum
A bullet with mass is shot with an initial kinetic energy of . What was the impulse on the bullet as it was fired?
The expression for impulse is the following:
We are given mass and initial kinetic energy, so we can also calculate the velocity of the bullet. Therefore, we will go with the second for of the expression:
Finding an expression for velocity, we get:
Rearranging for velocity, we get:
Plugging this in, we get:
Plugging in our values, we get:
Example Question #50 : Impulse And Momentum
A bullet of mass is shot at a velocity of and an angle of above the horizontal. What is the momentum of the bullet at its maximum height? Neglect air resistance.
When the bullet is at its maximum height, it has no vertical velocity component. Also, since we are neglecting air resistance, the horizontal velocity remains constant. Therefore, the velocity of the bullet at its maximum height is simply the initial horizontal velocity:
Plugging in values, we get:
Then using the expression for momentum:
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