Car vs Wall
Classical Mechanics
Level
3
Two cars are about to crash into each other at 100 km/hr each, as illustrated above.
What would the impact of this collision be most similar to?
Car travelling into wall at speed 50 km/hr
Car travelling into wall at speed 100 km/hr
Car travelling into wall at speed 200 km/hr
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1 solution
Since both the cars are identical and have equal speeds in opposite directions, the total linear momentum of the system before collision is zero.
( m v + m ( − v ) = 0 )
That means that after the collision, both the cars would be brought to rest (due to conservation of linear momentum). Thus, each car would receive an impulse of m ( 1 0 0 ) .
This would be the same impact received by a car with speed 100kmph driving into a wall and coming to rest.