problem 234

course PHY231

Right, and that will give you double what you got for that part of the distance.

Dillon,

Your solution is good except that during the second phase of motion the velocity is constant. The initial velocity is equal to the final velocity, which is in turn equal to the average velocity. There is no justification for averaging velocity zero with your 22.4 m/s velocity on this part of the interval. This doubles the distance on that interval.

Please submit a copy of this document, including my response, using the Submit Work form so I can post this to your access page.

David A. Smith

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Virginia Highlands Community College

dsmith@vhcc.edu

________________________________

From: Dillon Breeding [mailto:dwb2199@email.vccs.edu]

Sent: Wed 9/10/2008 5:55 PM

To: David Smith

Subject: Physics question

""A subway train starts from rest at a station and accelerates

at a rate of 1.60m/s^2 for 14.0s. It runs at a constant speed

for 70.0s and slows down at a rate of 3.50 m/s^2 until it

stops at the next station. Find the total distance covered.

I figured this would be similar to the problem I asked you

early, but since these is an even numbered problems the

answers aren't in the back of the book.

Anyhow, I just wanted to see if this is right:

I found the final velocity to be (1.60m/s^2)(14.0s)= 22.4m/s

for the first 14 seconds. Then taking v-average to be 11.2m/s

and using d'x= 11.2 m/s * 14.0s= 156.8m for the first 14 seconds.

Then since it travels at a constant speed I'm assuming that v

average will still be 11.2m/s since it doesn't accelerate

during this period of 70 seconds. So I take d'x= 70s(11.2m/s)

and come to 784m for this period. Then when it begins to slow

down I will have 3.50m/s^2= 22.4m/s / d't, giving d't=

6.4seconds. Then take v average 11.2m/s= d'x / 6.4= 71.68m

Adding all these distances up you get 1012.48 meters.