These problems involve use of Newton\'s first law as well the kinematics we have

Question

These problems involve use of Newton's first law as well the kinematics we have already covered A large block of ice is on the floor of the bed of a flatbed truck and the truck is traveling at a constant speed of 30 m/s in a straight line. The truck then slows down to a speed of 5 m/s over a fairly short time interval. Imagine two observers, one in the bed of the truck and another on the ground who each track the motion of the ice block from their respective reference frames as the truck slows down. There is negligible friction between the ice block and the bed floor. a) Describe the motion that each person observes. Be specific. b) The observer in the truck bed claims that the block of ice has accelerated forward and therefore an unbalanced force acts on the block. The ground based observer disputes this claim and uses Newton's first law and the observations he made regarding the ice block's motion to support his argument. What might the ground based observer say, assuming he gets it right?

Explanation / Answer

According to the observer on the ground as the truck decelerates there's no frictional force to act upon the block of ice and hence according to I law the block keeps moving forward.
According to the observer on the truck, (he being in an accelrated frame), a pseudo force acts in the direction opposite to the truck's acceleration (truck's acceleration is backwards, so pseudo force acts forward) and that causes the block to move in the forward direction (which was at rest in his reference frame untill now)

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