Calculating Direction and Speed Change in a Peregrine Falcon and Raven Collision

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
2 replies · 3K views
Legerity
Messages
19
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement



To protect their young in the nest, peregrine falcons will fly into birds of prey (such as ravens) at high speed. In one such episode, a 600g falcon flying at 20.0m/s hit a 1.40kg raven flying at 8.0m/s. The falcon hit the raven at right angles to its original path and bounced back at 5.0m/s. By what angle did the falcon change the raven's direction of motion? What was the raven's speed right after the collision?

Homework Equations


ΔP, arctan(P_y/P_x)

The Attempt at a Solution


I tried to find each individual momentum vector for the raven and falcon, then did arctan(P_fal/P_rav) to get the direction of the motion, but my answer of 47° turned out to be incorrect. Could someone please guide me on how to work out both of these problems?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Remember, the momentum of the falcon is not going to come into play when finding the direction of motion of the raven. Why don't we find the x and y components of the raven's final momentum and go from there?
 
Legerity said:
I tried to find each individual momentum vector for the raven and falcon, then did arctan(P_fal/P_rav) to get the direction of the motion,
That doesn't compute the direction of anything interesting as far as I can see.
Please post all your working:
- the momentum vectors for the two birds before collision
- the conservation of momentum equations
- the raven's velocity vector after collision
(Btw, the problem composer is clearly no ornithologist!)