Reference no: EM132787993

As always, show your work. Use g=10m/s2. If you can't solve a problem but need it to answer a later question, use the number 42 in your calculations.

In the halcyon days of her youth-- seemingly a lifetime before she found herself defending the lunar colony as part of the 33rd artillery battalion where she served as bovid payload to be rained down upon foes of the colony-- Nellie was a simple test engineer/ subject at a circus cannon manufacturing facility. To test the product, Nellie would load herself into the cannon on a test track and launch herself toward a spring which would send her back more or less the way she came. During her trip to and from the spring, other engineers would set up a giant novelty catcher's mitt that would nestle Nellie neatly as she slid safely to a stop. The mass of the cannon was 1000kg, the mass of the mitt was 500kg. Nellie's mass, if you must pry, was 700kg at the time.

-If the mitt had a friction coefficient against the ground of 0.7 and it slid for 4 seconds before coming to a stop while holding Nellie, calculate the speed at which Nellie and the mitt start the slide (after their collision).

-Use the concepts of impulse and momentum to explain why the engineers would use a novelty giant mitt instead of a solid brick-and-asbestos wall.

-If the mitt started at rest, calculate Nellie's speed before the collision.

-What was Nellie's momentum before the collision with the mitt?

- After bouncing off the spring, Nellie was moving toward the mitt with 75% of her original launch speed. Calculate her initial launch speed.

-What was the impulse imparted on Nellie by the spring?

-Would this impulse have been greater or less if she had simply met a definitive stop against a wall? Explain.

-If the wheels of the cannon were frictionless, calculate the recoil speed of the cannon.

-Explain the cannon's recoil in terms of conservation of momentum.

-Explain the recoil in terms of Newton's third law.