Calculating Speed of a Popsicle Stick in Water After a Bee Lands [SOLVED]

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[SOLVED] motion of a bee

Homework Statement


A honeybee with a mass of 0.175 g lands on one end of a popsicle stick (Active Example 9-2). After sitting at rest for a moment, the bee runs toward the other end with a velocity 1.69 cm/s relative to the still water. What is the speed of the 4.95 g stick relative to the water? (Assume the bee's motion is in the negative direction.)

Answer is in mm/s

Homework Equations


m1v1+m2v2


The Attempt at a Solution



I tried this 0+0=m1v1+m2v2 and plugged in 0=(0.175*-1690)+(4.95*v) and solved for v and got 59.7 mm/s but it was wrong.

** The bee is moving towards the right and the stick in floating in the water's direction towards the left.
 
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Your conversion to millimeters is incorrect:

1mm=.1 cm

not .001 cm as you seem to be using.

Try redoing the problem with the new conversion. Is your answer correct now?
 
So the answer is 597 mm/s? did i do everything else right? i didn't really understand the problem.
 
Ok i see what i did wrong instead of -16.9 i did 169 so my final answer recalculated is 0.597 mm/s...correct?
 
mortho said:
Ok i see what i did wrong instead of -16.9 i did 169 so my final answer recalculated is 0.597 mm/s...correct?

Yes, I agree with that.