You are working as a forensic physicist, analyzing a collision for the state pol

Question

You are working as a forensic physicist, analyzing a collision for the state police. According to witnesses, a car heading east and a truck heading south collided in an intersection. Photographs taken at the scene show that the car was severely damaged. Which of the following apply to this situation?

a)pcar, x, initial+ptruck, x, initial=pcar, x, final+ptruck, x, final

b)pcar, y, initial+ptruck, y, initial=pcar, y, final+ptruck, y, final

c)pcar, x, initial+pcar, x, final=ptruck, x, initial+ptruck, x, final

d)|p|car, initial+|p|truck, initial=|p|car, final+|p|truck, final

e)Ecar, initial+Etruck, initial=Ecar, final+Etruck, final

Please explain your reasoning in making the choices you did.

Explanation / Answer

Options a and b apply to the given situation.

During any kind of collision, the momentum is conserved completely in all the dimensions.

So, initial momentum along x is conserved (option a) and so is along y (option b).

Option c does not represent conservation of momentum and is irrelevant.

Option d is incorrect since we need to consider momentum with it's sign and not only it's magnitude.

Option e states conservation of energy. Energy is conserved only in elastic collisions and this situation not necessarily depict an elastic collision.

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