A car, mass m1 is moving to the right on a frictionless air track. It collides w

Question

A car, mass m1 is moving to the right on a frictionless air track. It collides with a second car, mass m2, which is initially at rest. Which of the following statements are true? (If A and E are true, and the others are not, enter TFFFT).

A) Suppose (for this statement only) that car 2 was NOT initially at rest, but was instead heading towards car 1 with equal (but opposite) momentum before the collision. After the collision, the cars must both be at rest.

B) If car 1 sticks to car 2, the final total kinetic energy of the car1-car2 system is less than the initial total kinetic energy of the two cars.

C) If car 1 sticks to car 2, the car1-car2 system must be at rest after the collision.

D) If the collision is elastic, car 1 will never come to a stop after the collision.

E) If car 1 is much lighter than car 2, and the collision is perfectly elastic, car 1 will be heading back to the left with nearly its original speed after the collision.

Explanation / Answer

for the given conditioins, the following will be the result.

A) False because Momentum must be conserved in all cases, so if the cars had different masses, they would not come to rest as they dont obey the conservation of momentum.

B) True. Kinetic Energy is not conserved in inelastic collisions, so the final kinetic energy is less than the initial kinetic energy of the system.

C) False. The system must be in moving condition to preserve the conservation of momentum.so they cant come to rest.

D) False. It may or may not necessarily continue its motion everytime that way.

E) True. if it is a perfectly elastic collision, then car1 will head in opposite direction, that is towards left with nearly its original speed.

So, answer is FTFFT.

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