Question

A cheetah sitting in the grass sees a gazelle 28 meters away and accelerates towards it at 6 m/s². It takes the cheetah 7 seconds to catch up to the gazelle. What is the average velocity of the cheetah?

Answer 1

The average velocity of the cheetah is found by dividing the total displacement (28 meters) by the time taken to catch the gazelle (7 seconds), which results in an average velocity of 4 m/s.

Step-by-step explanation:

To solve this problem, we will need to use the concepts of acceleration, displacement, and velocity from physics. Although the student provided information about the cheetah's acceleration being 4 m/s² and the time taken to catch the gazelle being 5 seconds, the question asks for a scenario where the cheetah takes 7 seconds to catch the gazelle and has an acceleration of 6 m/s². Therefore, we will need to adjust our computations accordingly.

To find the average velocity of the cheetah over the duration of the chase, we can use the formula for average velocity (vavg) which is the total displacement (d) divided by the total time (t). Since the cheetah catches the gazelle at 28 meters, the displacement is 28 meters. Given that it takes the cheetah 7 seconds to catch the gazelle, we can calculate the average velocity:

vavg = d / t = 28 meters / 7 seconds = 4 m/s

Thus, the average velocity of the cheetah is 4 m/s.