Question

According to sources that should know these things, a piece of an object hit by a projectile can move toward the launch site rather than away from the launch site. A projectile is launched, strikes a target, the target splits into two pieces and one piece (allegedly) under certain circumstances moves back toward the launch site. Does this make sense? Rather than argue about common sense and how the world is supposed to work, an experiment is conducted. In one trial, an 8.0-g projectile is launched (horizontally) at 400 m/s (launch velocity) toward a 1.20 kg target several meters away. The target is split into two pieces of unequal size. The projectile lodges in the smaller piece and the combination propels forward (in the original direction of the projectile) at 9.2 m/s. If the combined mass of the projectile/dislodged piece is 0.45 kg, determine the final velocity of the larger piece.

Answer 1