Question

An air hockey table is considered frictionless as the puck sits on a cushion of air. The puck will accelerate at 55 m/s (about 5.5 g's) when your friend hits it with a force of 2.3 Newtons (0.5 lbs). The mass of an air hockey puck must be about _____grams.

Answer 1

By applying Newton's second law of motion and converting the mass from kilograms to grams, we find that the mass of an air hockey puck must be approximately 41.8 grams.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the mass of the hockey puck, we can use Newton's second law of motion, which states that the force exerted on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the acceleration (F = ma). Given that the puck's acceleration is 55 m/s2 when hit with a force of 2.3 Newtons, we can rearrange the formula to solve for mass (m = F/a).

The calculation would be:

m = 2.3 N / 55 m/s2 = 0.0418 kg

Since 1 kilogram equals 1000 grams, the mass in grams would be:

m = 0.0418 kg * 1000 g/kg = 41.8 g

Thus, the mass of the air hockey puck would be approximately 41.8 grams.

This calculation assumes a frictionless surface where only the force of the hit and the acceleration due to that force are considered.