Question

The centripetal acceleration of a toy airplane whirled around in a horizontal

circle of radius = 10. ft is 0.74 m/s2. How do I find the m/s?

Answer 1

To find the speed of the toy airplane in m/s, we convert the given radius from feet to meters and use the formula for centripetal acceleration. The speed is calculated to be approximately 1.50 m/s.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the speed (m/s) of the toy airplane, we can use the formula for centripetal acceleration (ac):

ac = v² / r

Here, ac is the centripetal acceleration, v is the tangential speed of the airplane, and r is the radius of the circle. Given that ac is 0.74 m/s² and r is 10 ft (which needs to be converted to meters, 1 ft = 0.3048 m), we can rearrange the formula to solve for v:

v = √(ac × r)

First, convert the radius:

r = 10 ft × 0.3048 m/ft = 3.048 m

Now, plug in the values into the formula:

v = √(0.74 m/s² × 3.048 m)

v ≈ √(2.25552) ≈ 1.50 m/s

Therefore, the speed of the toy airplane is approximately 1.50 m/s.