Question

A boy is pulling a toy wagon through a neighborhood at a speed of 0.75 m/s. A caterpillar in the wagon is crawling toward the rear of the wagon at a rate of 2.0 cm/s. What is the caterpillar’s velocity relative to the ground?

Answer 1

0.73 m/s in the forward direction

Step-by-step explanation:

The caterpillar's velocity relative to the ground is given by:

`v' = v_w + v`

where

`v_w` is the velocity of the wagon with respect to the ground

v is the velocity of the caterpillar in the wagon's reference frame

In this situation we have

`v_w = +0.75 m/s`

`v=-2.0 cm/s = -0.02 m/s` where the negative sign is due to the fact that the caterpillar is moving backward

Substituting,

`v'=+0.75-0.02=+0.73 m/s`