This is an elastic collision problem that involves an orange puck and a green pu

Question

This is an elastic collision problem that involves an orange puck and a green puck on a frictionless air hockey table. Before the collision, the orange puck of mass 0.5 kg is moving with velocity 5.00 m/s along the x-axis.  The green puck has mass 0.5 kg and is originally at rest. After the collision, the orange puck as a final velocity at direction 37 degrees above the horizontal axis. The green disk moves off at an angle of 53 degrees below the horizontal axis. Find the final speed of the green puck

Explanation / Answer

Since this is a elatic collision

using law of conservation of linear momentum

momentum before collision = momentum after collision

along X-axis

mo*uo + mg*ug = (mo*vo*cos(37)) + (mg*vg*cos(53))

(0.5*5)+(0.5*0) = (0.5*vo*0.8)+(0.5*vg*0.6)

2.5 = 0.4*vo + 0.3*vg..................(1)

along y-axis

0 = (mo*vo*sin(37)) + (mg*vg*sin(53))

0 = (0.5*0.6*vo)+(0.5*vg*0.8)

0 = 0.3*vo + 0.4*vg ...............(2)

solving (1) and (2) we get

vo = 14.28 m/sec and vg = -10.72 m/sec

so the answer is vg = 10.72 m/sec

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