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Speed of two cars
A Maserati read-ends an old Yugo convertible on a highway. Including their loads, the Maserati's mass is 2000 kg and the Yugo's mass is 1000 kg. The collision is totally inelastic, and the coupled vehicles go into a prolonged skid. The length of the skid marks is found to be 73 m. The coefficient of sliding friction between the asphalt road and the vehicles' tires is .70. The Yougo driver reports that he was going at 28 m/s just before the collision. How fast was the Maserati going at that instant?
Customer support service by UserEcho
First, use Newtons second law with the force of friction to find the acceleration. Then use the kinematic equation v^2=vo^2+2ad to find the velocity of the cars after the crash. This velocity is v_f of a collision problem. It's a simple conservation of momentum to solve for the velocity of the Maserati.