Question

If a car traveling at 60 km/h will skid 20m when its brakes lock, how far will it skid if it traveling at 120 km/h when its brakes lock?

Answer 1

This is a really sneaky problem. The car's kinetic energy is proportional to the square of its speed. But the energy lost to friction during the skid is only proportional to the distance. So doubling the speed gives the car four times as much kinetic energy and it needs four times as much distance to Skid to a stop. if the car travels 120 kilometers per hour it needs 4 x 20 = 80 meters to skid to a stop.

Answer 2

80 m (assuming the car's deceleration is the same)

Step-by-step explanation:

The distance the car needs to completely stop is given by the following suvat equation:

`v^2 - u^2 = 2ad`

where

v = 0 is the final velocity of the car

u is the initial velocity of the car

a is the deceleration of the car

d is how far the car travels

Re-arranging the equation, we have

`d=(v^2-u^2)/(2a)`

So, we see that d is proportional to the square of the initial velocity,
`u^2`. Therefore, if in the initial situation the car starts with
`u=60 km/h` and travels d=20 m, then if the car travels at twice the initial velocity (
`u=120 km/h`, it will cover a distance four times larger, i.e. 80 m.