Calculating Forces: Car Pulling a Trailer
Question:
Your 1300-kg car pulls a 600-kg trailer away from a stoplight with an acceleration of 1.20 m/s2. a) What is the force exerted by the car on the trailer? Assume no friction is acting on the trailer at this moment. b) What force does the trailer exert on the car? c) What is the net force acting on the car?
Answer:
The force exerted by the car on the trailer is 720 N, and by Newton's third law, the trailer exerts an equal and opposite force of 720 N on the car. Additional information is needed to find the net force on the car.
Explanation:
To determine the forces involved:
a) Force exerted by the car on the trailer:
To calculate this force, we can apply Newton's second law of motion, which states that the force acting on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its acceleration (F = ma).
Given that the mass of the trailer is 600 kg and the acceleration is 1.20 m/s2, we can solve for the force:
Force = 600 kg x 1.20 m/s2 = 720 N. Therefore, the force exerted by the car on the trailer is 720 N.
b) Force exerted by the trailer on the car:
According to Newton's third law of motion, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, the force exerted by the trailer on the car is also 720 N but in the opposite direction as the force exerted by the car on the trailer.
c) Net force acting on the car:
The net force acting on the car is the sum of all forces acting on it. In this scenario, the net force would include the force exerted by the car on the trailer and any other forces like the engine force of the car. Since friction is ignored, only the force on the trailer is considered. Additional information about the engine's force would be needed to calculate the net force on the car accurately.