You decide to test your archery skills. A friend of yours throws an apple vertic

Question

You decide to test your archery skills. A friend of yours throws an apple vertically upward, and you fire an arrow into the apple on its return trip downward. You hit your target when the arrow impales and becomes firmly lodged in the apple. The arrow (ma) and the apple (mb) have identical masses, and their impact speeds (va and vb) are the same. If the speed after the collision (vf) is one-third of the arrow's impact speed, at what angle theta did they collide? (Hint: A clever choice of coordinate system simplifies this problem a great deal.)

Explanation / Answer

By conservation of momentum and the cosine rule:

((m_a+m_b)*v_f)^2= (m_a.v_a)^2 + (m_b.v_b)^2 -2(m_a.v_a)(m_b.v_b) cos

--> (2m(v/3))^2 =m^2v^2 +m^2v^2 - 2m^2v^2 cos

--> 2/9 = 1- cos

--> = 38.942 degrees

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse Y
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.