The Mystery of Coefficient of Kinetic Friction
What is the coefficient of kinetic friction between the bag and the ground?
A boy pulls a bag of baseball bats across a ball field toward the parking lot. The bag of bats has a mass of 6.80 kg, and the boy exerts a horizontal force of 24.0 N on the bag. As a result, the bag accelerates from rest to a speed of 1.12 m/s in a distance of 5.25 m. What is the coefficient of kinetic friction between the bag and the ground?
Answer:
The coefficient of kinetic friction between the bag of baseball bats and the ground is approximately 0.3385.
Let's unravel the mystery of the coefficient of kinetic friction between the bag of baseball bats and the ground. In this scenario, a boy exerts a force on the bag to accelerate it across the field. To determine the coefficient of kinetic friction, we need to analyze the forces at play.
First, we calculate the acceleration of the bag using the given data. The acceleration is found by dividing the net force on the bag by its mass. The net force is the difference between the applied force by the boy and the force of friction acting in the opposite direction.
Next, we calculate the force of friction using the equation for kinetic friction, which involves the coefficient of kinetic friction and the normal force. The normal force is equal to the weight of the bag, which is the product of its mass and the acceleration due to gravity.
By substituting the given values into the equations and solving for the unknown coefficient of kinetic friction, we find that the coefficient is approximately 0.3385. This coefficient represents the interaction between the bag of baseball bats and the ground as the boy pulls it across the field.