What Happens When a Red Wagon Collides with a Blue Wagon?
What is the velocity of the blue wagon immediately after the red wagon collides with it?
A red wagon with a mass of 7 kg is moving with a velocity of 4 m/s straight toward a blue wagon at rest. The red wagon's mass is 7 times the mass of the blue wagon. The final velocity of the red wagon is 3 m/s. What is the velocity of the blue wagon immediately after the collision?
Velocity of the Blue Wagon After Collision:
The velocity of the blue wagon immediately after the collision with the red wagon is calculated to be 7 m/s.
When a red wagon with 7 kg mass and a velocity of 4 m/s collides with a blue wagon at rest, some interesting physics come into play. The mass of the red wagon is 7 times that of the blue wagon, leading to a momentum conservation scenario.
According to the principle of conservation of momentum, the total momentum of two objects before the collision is equal to the total momentum after the collision, provided no external forces are present. In this case, the initial momentum of the red wagon is calculated as 28 kg·m/s (7 kg × 4 m/s).
After the collision, the red wagon's final velocity is 3 m/s, resulting in a momentum of 21 kg·m/s (3 m/s × 7 kg). The change in momentum, 7 kg·m/s, will be equal to the momentum gained by the blue wagon, which has 1/7th the mass of the red wagon.
By applying the conservation of momentum equation, we can find that the velocity of the blue wagon immediately after the collision is 7 m/s, ensuring the total momentum remains constant in the system.