PH2530

Homework Assignment 3.1

Joshua Swafford

1. An ice skater is twirling in a circle with her arms extended. a. What will happen if she brings her arms in closer to her body? Once the skater brings her arms in, she will begin to spin faster because she is making the radius smaller and her velocity is going to increase. b. What is being conserved in this example? The Conserved for the example is Angular Momentum. 14. A fully dressed person is at rest in the middle of a pond on perfectly frictionless ice and must get to shore. How can this be accomplished? Explain in terms of momentum conservation. To reach the shore, the person could simply take off their clothes and throw them the opposite way. Conservation of momentum states that the person will move in the opposite direction on the frictionless ice. 36. At what point in its motion is the KE of a pendulum bob at maximum? At what point is its PE at maximum? When its KE is at half its maximum value, how much PE does it possess? When the pendulum is at the bottom, the KE is at its maximum, and the PE is at its minimum. When the pendulum is at the top the PE is at its maximum, and the KE is at its minimum. With the two types of energy canceling each other out, once the KE reaches half its maximum value, the PE will also reach half its maximum value.

PH2530

Homework Assignment 3.1

Joshua Swafford

46. In the absence of air resistance, a ball thrown vertically upward with a certain initial KE will return to its original level with the same KE. When air resistance is a factor affecting the ball, will it return to its original level with the same, less, or more KE? Does your answer contradict the law of energy conservation? When you figure in the air resistance, the ball will return back to its original position slower because its forces to move and push air molecules out of its way. So seeing that it had to exert some force, it will be less kinetic energy than when it started. This does not contradict the the law of energy conservation. 54. If two objects have equal kinetic energies, do they necessarily have the same momentum? Defend your answer. No, since Kinetic Energy is a scalar quantity and momentum is a vector quantity. And the Formula also states this fact as well. KE = m*v; and Momentum =m*v 12. This question is similar to some on drivers-license exams: A car moving at 50 km/h skids 15 m with locked brakes. Show that with locked brakes at 150 km/h the car will skid 135 m.
When the two problems are compared to each other, we can layout the problems for their KE. We know that the equation for Kinetic Energy is KE = m*v. We also know that the wanted equation has a speed (velocity) 3 times faster than the given equation. And we also know that the mass did not change at all between the two vehicles we can plug and play a bit and get the answer we need. When we do this we can use a partial piece of the equation. If we know that mass does not change then we can assume that v = 15 m. Since the given equation is giving 3 times the original velocity then we plug that into the equation as 3 = ? which the answer that we are looking for is 135m for the distance. (Original) 15m = m * v (Requested) 135m = m * 3