Question

José is acting in an action movie. He is standing on the edge of a small boat when he fires a skeet shooting gun and the recoil drives him backward over the edge and into the sea. The mass of a bullet is 0.0103 kg and its velocity is 659 m/s. José's mass (including the gun) is 95.8 kg. What is the magnitude of the recoil velocity (in m/s) that José experiences?

Answer 1

Using the conservation of momentum, the magnitude of José's recoil velocity after firing a gun is calculated to be approximately 0.0705 m/s.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question asks to calculate the magnitude of the recoil velocity experienced by José after firing a skeet shooting gun. To solve this, we can employ the conservation of momentum principle, which states that the total momentum before an event must equal the total momentum after the event, provided no external forces act on the system.

Before firing, José and the gun are stationary, so the initial momentum is 0. After firing, the bullet moves forward and José (with the gun) moves backward. The momentum of the bullet (mass × velocity) is 0.0103 kg × 659 m/s, which should equal the momentum of José and the gun moving backward.

To find the recoil velocity (v) of José, we use the equation:

momentum of the bullet = momentum of José

0.0103 kg × 659 m/s = 95.8 kg × v

v = (0.0103 kg × 659 m/s) / 95.8 kg

v ≈ 0.0705 m/s

Hence, the magnitude of José's recoil velocity is approximately 0.0705 m/s.