Question

Initially two gliders are traveling towards each other. The blue glider is traveling to the right at 5.3 cm/s. the red glider is traveling to the left at an unknown speed. The two gliders collide. After the collision, the blue glider traveling to the right at 1.3 cm/s, and the red glider is traveling to the right at 3.2 cm/s. The blue glide has a mass of 602 g, and the red glider has a mass of 173g. What was the initial speed of the glider?

Answer 1

SOLUTION

According to conservation of linear momentum we have:

therefore:

Isolating from equation (2) we get:

Where:

is the initial speed of red glider (before collision).

is the mass of red glider.

is the mass of blue glider.

is the initial speed of blue glider (before collision)

is the final speed of blue glider (after collision)

is the final speed of red glider (after collision)

Now, replacing data given values into equation (3) we get:

Solving we obtain: