Question

Two shuffleboard disks of equal mass, one orange and the other yellow, are involved in an elastic, glancing collision. The yellow disk is initially at rest and is struck by the orange disk moving with a speed of 6.00 m/s. After the collision, the orange disk moves along a direction that makes an angle of 35.0° with its initial direction of motion. The velocities of the two disks are perpendicular after the collision. Determine the final speed of each disk.

orange disk	m/s
yellow disk	m/s

Answer 1

the problem can be solved using momentum conservation

mass of each disk = m

initial momentum of system along the direction of ornage disk movement= 6*m=6m

let final speed of orange disk be v_o and that of yellow disk be v_y

for momentum conservation along the direction of orange disk,

6m = m*v_o*cos35 + m*v_y*cos55

6=0.819v_o+0.573v_y ...(i)

for momentum conservation perpendicular to orange disk

0= v_o*sin35 + v_y*sin55

0=0.537v_o + 0.819v_y...(ii)

Solving (i) and (ii),we get

v_o=13.53 m/s

v_y=8.87 m/s