221k views
4 votes
You are given two carts A and B. They look identical and you are told they are made of the same material. You place A at rest at an air track and give B a constant velocity directed to the right so that it collides elastically with A. After the collision cart B moves to the left. What do you conclude?

(A) Cart A is hollow.
(B) The two carts are identical.
(C) Cart B is hollow.

User Tim Joyce
by
6.9k points

2 Answers

1 vote

Final answer:

In an elastic collision, both momentum and kinetic energy are conserved. Based on the collision behavior where cart B moves to the left after hitting cart A, we can deduce that cart A moves to the right, as expected in an elastic collision where one cart was initially at rest.

Step-by-step explanation:

If cart B collides elastically with cart A and subsequently moves to the left, this indicates an elastic collision has taken place. An elastic collision is one in which both momentum and kinetic energy are conserved. Since cart B was given a constant velocity and moves to the left after the collision, while cart A was initially at rest, we can conclude based on conservation of momentum that cart A must have moved to the right. Without further details, we cannot specifically determine whether cart A is hollow or whether the carts are truly identical; however, the information provided does suggest that the collision behaved as would be expected for an elastic collision between two objects, of which, at least initially, one is at rest

User Matthew Kwong
by
6.0k points
2 votes

Answer: cart B is hollow

Step-by-step explanation:

Given

Cart A is initially at rest and cart B is moving towards right and collide with cart A

After collision cart B started moving towards left i.e. mass of cart A is very large as compared to cart B.

Movement of cart B in the direction opposite to initial one Proves that cart B fails to transfer momentum to cart A because cart A is very heavy.

Thus we can conclude cart B is hollow.

User Silviud
by
5.4k points