- #1
issacnewton
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here is a problem i am doing
consider a mass which is freely falling vertically down. neglect air resistance. at some point this mass explodes and is divided in two pieces. mass m1 and mass m2. these pieces fall on the ground at the same time. the first piece falls at a distance s from the place it would have landed (straight down) had the explosion not occurred. please find the distance between the pieces after they land on the ground.
here is my attempt. the exploding pieces can have x and y components of the velocities. but we need not consider the y components of the velocities since the linear momentum in y direction is not conserved. if v1 and v2 are the velocities in the
x direction , we can write using conservation of linear momentum.
[tex]m_1 v_1=m_2 v_2[/tex]
Now [itex]s=v_1 t[/itex].let s' be the horizontal distance covered by the second piece, then
[itex]s' = v_2 t[/itex]. The distance between the pieces then is s+s'.
[tex]s+s'=v_1 t + v_2 t[/tex]
[tex]s+s'= \left(1+\frac{m_1}{m_2}\right)v_1 t[/tex]
[tex]s+s'= \left(1+\frac{m_1}{m_2}\right)s[/tex]
does it sound right ?
consider a mass which is freely falling vertically down. neglect air resistance. at some point this mass explodes and is divided in two pieces. mass m1 and mass m2. these pieces fall on the ground at the same time. the first piece falls at a distance s from the place it would have landed (straight down) had the explosion not occurred. please find the distance between the pieces after they land on the ground.
here is my attempt. the exploding pieces can have x and y components of the velocities. but we need not consider the y components of the velocities since the linear momentum in y direction is not conserved. if v1 and v2 are the velocities in the
x direction , we can write using conservation of linear momentum.
[tex]m_1 v_1=m_2 v_2[/tex]
Now [itex]s=v_1 t[/itex].let s' be the horizontal distance covered by the second piece, then
[itex]s' = v_2 t[/itex]. The distance between the pieces then is s+s'.
[tex]s+s'=v_1 t + v_2 t[/tex]
[tex]s+s'= \left(1+\frac{m_1}{m_2}\right)v_1 t[/tex]
[tex]s+s'= \left(1+\frac{m_1}{m_2}\right)s[/tex]
does it sound right ?