Question:

A gun with a mass of 2 kg fires out a .01 kg bullet with a muzzle speed 1,000 m/s. The bullet hits a 10 kg block resting o a horizontal surface. The block and bullet (embedded in the block) slide across the surface. If the coefficient of friction is .06. How far does the block slide?

Raw Transcript

Hello, everyone. Tom from everystepphysics.com and everystepcalculus.com. I want to do a physics problem off of a test that was, with respect to you know a bullet in a block sliding on a surface and how you find the how far the block slides. So here’s the test problem. A gun with a mass of 2 kilograms fires out a .01 kilogram bullet with a muzzle speed 1,000 meters per second. The bullet hits a 10 kilogram block resting o a horizontal surface. The block and bullet (embedded in the block) slide across the surface. If the coefficient of friction is .06, how far does the block slide? It’s irrelevant how much the gun weighs. So, that was in there to trick you, of course as if physics wasn’t hard enough. So let’s get started. Physics to get to my menu. We’re going to scroll down to bullet and pendulum. And bullet is is embedded in the block after the it has launched. It’s on a surface. And there’s friction and we want to find distance, number two. We’re going to enter the mass. We have to press Alpha before we enter anything in these at these entry lines here. So the mass is Alpha point 0 one kilograms. And the second mass Alpha is .01 kilograms. Initial Velocity is Alpha 1000 meters per second. And the coefficient is Alpha point 06. I always let you look at something to see if it’s correct. I say it’s correct. You can change it if you want. Here’s the formula. As you write this on your paper and you add the variables here. I always was like to show everybody what I’m talking about. Distance sliding for D. And here’s the calculations and here’s the answer .847 meters. Pretty neat, huh. everystepphysics.com.