Hey there. So
In class we watched a MythBusters video testing whether or not
A car going 100 mph into a wall is the same as
Two cars going 50 mph colliding together
And it turned out that
the two cars colliding were actually equivalent to just one 50 mph car hitting a wall
So
They didn't really do that good of a job explaing
in that video in terms of physics so i thought I would do that here
I think the best way to describe this is through impulse and momentum so
Impulse is defined as the change in momentum
and momentum, p, is mass times velocity
So in the first one we have the car going 100 mph into the wall and
The initial momentum is 100m because we don't know the mass
and the final momentum is 0 so the change in momentum would be equal to -100m
And for the 50 mph one we have
The initial momentum is 50m and
the final momentum is 0 so the change in momentum would be -50m
And then
Here in the last one with the collision
We have the equation for an inelastic collision, m1v1+m2v2=v(m1+m2)
And when you combine all that its 50m+-50m
Because the momentum of the two
50 moving in one direction and 50 moving in the other
and it ends up being 0 so
if we isolate the momentum acting on the first car
The initial momentum is 50m
and then because
of the equation we know that the final momentum of it is 0
So the change in momentum is -50m which is equal to a 50 mph car hitting a wall not a 100 mph car hitting a wall
So
I thought I would clear that up and
This is my project grade so have a good day
