Question

You are an attorney for a car company that is very proud of the steps they have taken to protect passengers during a collision. You car (m = 1000 kg) has been tested to apply a force of 10 N to its passengers during a collision with a concrete wall when the car velocity is less than 30 m/s. A woman was hurt during a collision in one of your cars. The doctor indicates that the force to cause the injury was 15 N. Using math, impulse, momentum develop a reason why the injuries experienced by the woman could not have been due to a poor design of your car.

Answer 1

The injuries could not have been due to a poor car design.

Step-by-step explanation:

The injuries experienced by the woman during the collision in one of your cars could not have been due to a poor design of the car.

Impulse is the product of the net force and the time interval over which the force was applied. A larger force applied over a shorter time interval can cause more severe injuries compared to a smaller force applied over a longer time interval.

In this case, the car has been tested to apply a force of 10 N to its passengers during a collision when the car velocity is less than 30 m/s. The doctor indicates that the force to cause the injury was 15 N. Since the force exerted during the collision was less than the force that the car has been designed to apply, it is unlikely that the injuries were due to a poor design of the car.