To calculate the mass of the truck, we can use the principle of conservation of momentum. When two objects stick together after a collision, the total momentum before the collision is equal to the total momentum after the collision. The formula for momentum is:
where
p=mv
Where:
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p is the momentum
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m is the mass of the object
v is the velocity of the object
In this case, before the collision, the toy train has a momentum of train
and the truck has a momentum of truck.
After the collision, when they stick together, the combined mass is
train+truck m train +m truck and they have a velocity of 0.26 m/s.
So, according to the conservation of momentum: