Question

The Flintstones’ car used to long cylinders (front and back) as “wheels.” However, if you were to use it for downhill race and were allowed to replace the long cylinders with four wheels, which shapes would you choose? The options are cylinder, hollow cylinder, and sphere. Assume the radius of each of these wheels to be the same as the original ones, and the mass of each of the four wheels to be 10% of the lang ones.

A: Neglecting the mass of the rest of the car, how much faster would your design be than the original vehicle in a race down a 100 ft (30 m) high hill.

B: Instead that the rest of the car had the same mass as the both the original wheels. Would the result be different?

Answer 1