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Grade 11Mechanics

A ball of mass m and speed v strikes a wall perpendicularly and rebounds with undiminished speed. (a) If the time of collision is ∆t, what is the average force exerted by the ball on the wall? (b) Evaluate this average force numerically for a rubber ball with mass 140 g moving at 7.8 m/s; the duration of the collision is 3.9 ms.

Profile image of Simran Bhatia
11 Years agoGrade 11
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1 Answer

Profile image of Aditi Chauhan
11 Years ago
When the ball of mass m and speed v strikes a wall, the initial momentum (pi) of the ball,
pi = mv …… (3)
and
When the ball rebounds, the direction of velocity will be just opposite to the direction of its initial direction. So the velocity in this case will be –v.
Using equation (2), the final momentum pf of the ball will be,
pf = -mv …… (4)
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