Question

If you free the cork in a highly pressurized champagne bottle, the resulting launch of the cork will, in principle, cause the bottle to recoil. A filled champagne bottle has a mass of 1.8 kg. The cork has a mass of 7.5 g and is launched at 20 m/s.

a. Explain the conservation of momentum for this pair of bottle and cork?

b. What is cork’s initial momentum? What is bottle’s initial momentum?

c. What is cork’s final momentum?

d. What is bottle’s final momentum?

e. If the bottle could move freely, with what speed would it recoil? Is this something you are likely to notice?

Answer 1