Back to 8.3 Conservation of Momentum

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Avg difficulty 2.5

Consider the following question: A car moving at 10 m/s crashes into a tree and stops in 0.26 s. Calculate the force the seatbelt exerts on a passenger in the car to bring him to a halt. The mass of the passenger is 70 kg. Would the answer to this question be different if the car with the 70-kg passenger had collided with a car that has a mass equal to and is traveling in the opposite direction and at the same speed? Explain your answer.

OpenStax College Physics 2e, 8.3 Conservation of Momentum, exercise 16

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Adapted from College Physics © 2022 Rice University. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Sources: College Physics 2e, College Physics for AP® Courses 2e. Imported at revision f98d7a7.