CHAPTER 6 AND 7 PRACTICE QUESTIONS

1. A cable lifts a 1200-kg elevator at a constant velocity for a distance of 35 m. What is

the work done by (a) the tension in the cable and (b) the elevator’s weight?
2. A 75.0-kg man is riding an escalator in a shopping mall. The escalator moves the man
at a constant velocity from ground level to the floor above, a vertical height of 4.60 m.
What is the work done on the man by (a) the gravitational force and (b) the escalator?
3. A water-skier is being pulled by a tow rope attached to a boat. As the driver pushes
the throttle forward, the skier accelerates. A 70.3-kg water-skier has an initial speed of
6.10 m/s. Later, the speed increases to 11.3 m/s. Determine the work done by the net
external force acting on the skier.
4. When an 81.0-kg adult uses a spiral staircase to climb to the second floor of his house,
his gravitational potential energy increases by 2.00 X 103 J. By how much does the
potential energy of an 18.0-kg child increase when the child climbs a normal staircase
to the second floor?
5. A 35-kg girl is bouncing on a trampoline. During a certain interval after she leaves the
surface of the trampoline, her kinetic energy decreases to 210 J from 440 J. How high
does she rise during this interval? Neglect air resistance.
6. Starting from rest, a 93-kg firefighter slides down a fire pole. The average frictional
force exerted on him by the pole has a magnitude of 810 N, and his speed at the
bottom of the pole is 3.4 m/s. How far did he slide down the pole?
7. A helicopter, starting from rest, accelerates straight up from the roof of a hospital. The
lifting force does work in raising the helicopter. An 810-kg helicopter rises from rest
to a speed of 7.0 m/s in a time of 3.5 s. During this time it climbs to a height of 8.2 m.
What is the average power generated by the lifting force?
8. In a performance test, each of two cars takes 9.0 s to accelerate from rest to 27 m/s.
Car A has a mass of 1400 kg, and car B has a mass of 1900 kg. Find the net average
force that acts on each car during the test.
9. In a football game, a receiver is standing still, having just caught a pass. Before he can
move, a tackler, running at a velocity of +4.5 m/s, grabs him. The tackler holds onto
the receiver, and the two move off together with a velocity of +2.6 m/s. The mass of
the tackler is 115 kg. Assuming that momentum is conserved, find the mass of the
receiver.
10. One object is at rest, and another is moving. The two collide in a one-dimensional,
completely inelastic collision. In other words, they stick together after the collision
and move off with a common velocity. Momentum is conserved. The speed of the
object that is moving initially is the masses of the two objects are 3.0 and 8.0 kg.
Determine the final speed of the two-object system after the collision for the case
when the large-mass object is the one moving initially and the case when the small-
mass object is the one moving initially.
11. John’s mass is 86 kg, and Barbara’s is 55 kg. He is standing on the x axis at while she
is standing on the x axis at They switch positions. How far and in which direction
does their center of mass move as a result of the switch?
MEMORANDUM
1. REASONING The work done by the tension in the cable is given by Equation 6.1 as
. Since the elevator is moving upward at a constant velocity, it is in
equilibrium, and the magnitude T of the tension must be equal to the magnitude mg of
the elevator’s weight; T = mg.

SOLUTION
a. The tension and the displacement vectors point in the same direction (upward), so the
angle between them is  = 0. The work done by the tension is

(6.1)

b. The weight and the displacement vectors point in opposite directions, so the angle
between them is  = 180. The work done by the weight is

(6.1)

2. REASONING
a. The work done by the gravitational force is given by Equation 6.1 as W = (F cos θ) s.
The gravitational force points downward, opposite to the upward vertical displacement
of 4.60 m. Therefore, the angle θ is 180º.

b. The work done by the escalator is done by the upward normal force that the escalator
exerts on the man. Since the man is moving at a constant velocity, he is in equilibrium,
and the net force acting on him must be zero. This means that the normal force must
balance the man’s weight. Thus, the magnitude of the normal force is FN = mg, and the
work that the escalator does is also given by Equation 6.1. However, since the normal
force and the upward vertical displacement point in the same direction, the angle θ is 0º.

SOLUTION
a. According to Equation 6.1, the work done by the gravitational force is

b. The work done by the escalator is

3. REASONING The work W done by the net external force acting on the skier can be

found from the work-energy theorem in the form of (Equation

6.3) because the final and initial kinetic energies of the skier can be determined. The

kinetic energy is increasing, because the skier’s speed is increasing. Thus,

the work will be positive, reflecting the fact that the net external force must be in the
same direction as the displacement of the skier to make the skier pick up speed.

SOLUTION The work done by the net external force acting on the skier is

4. REASONING The change in gravitational potential energy for both the adult and the
child is ∆PE = mghf  mgh0, where we have used Equation 6.5. Therefore,
∆PE = mg(hf  h0). In this expression hf  h0 is the vertical height of the second floor
above the first floor, and its value is not given. However, we know that it is the same
for both staircases, a fact that will play the central role in our solution.

SOLUTION Solving ∆PE = mg(hf  h0) for hf  h0, we obtain

Since hf  h0 is the same for the adult and the child, we have

Solving this result for (PE)Child gives

5. REASONING The girl’s gravitational potential energy (Equation 6.5)

increases as she rises. This increase comes at the expense of her kinetic energy
(Equation 6.2), which decreases as she rises. Because air resistance is
negligible, all of the kinetic energy she loses is transformed into potential energy, so
that her total mechanical energy remains constant. We will use this
principle to determine the distance she rises during this interval.

SOLUTION The conservation principle gives

Solving this expression for , which is the distance she rises, we obtain

6. REASONING As the firefighter slides down the pole from a height h0 to the ground
(hf = 0 m), his potential energy decreases to zero. At the same time, his kinetic energy
increases as he speeds up from rest (v0 = 0 m/s) to a final speed vf,. However, the
upward nonconservative force of kinetic friction fk, acting over a downward
displacement h0, does a negative amount of work on him:

(Equation 6.1). This work decreases his total

mechanical energy E. Applying the work-energy theorem (Equation 6.8), with
hf = 0 m and v0 = 0 m/s, we obtain

(6.8)

(1)

SOLUTION Solving Equation (1) for the height h0 gives

The distance h0 that the firefighter slides down the pole is, therefore,
7. REASONING The average power is defined as the work divided by the time,
Equation 6.10a, so both the work and time must be known. The time is given. The
work can be obtained with the aid of the work-energy theorem as formulated in

(Equation 6.6). Wnc is the work done by the

lifting force acting on the helicopter. In using this equation, we note that two types of

energy are changing: the kinetic energy and the gravitational potential energy
(mgh). The kinetic energy is increasing, because the speed of the helicopter is
increasing. The gravitational potential energy is increasing, because the height of the
helicopter is increasing.

SOLUTION The average power is

(6.10a)

where Wnc is the work done by the nonconservative lifting force and t is the time. The work is
related to the helicopter’s kinetic and potential energies by Equation 6.6:

Thus, the average power is

8. REASONING The impulse-momentum theorem, as expressed in Equation 7.4, states

that the impulse acting on each car is equal to the final momentum of the car minus its
initial momentum:

where is the net average force that acts on the car, and t is the time interval during
which the force acts.

SOLUTION We assume that the velocity of each car points in the +x direction. The net
average force acting on each car is:
9. REASONING AND SOLUTION The collision is an inelastic one, with the total
linear momentum being conserved:
m1v1 = (m1 + m2)V
The mass m2 of the receiver is

10. REASONING Since momentum is conserved, the total momentum of the two-object
system after the collision must be the same as it was before the collision. Momentum
is mass times velocity. Since one of the objects is at rest initially, the total initial
momentum comes only from the moving object.

Let m1 and v01 be, respectively, the mass and initial velocity of the moving object before
the collision. In addition, m and vf are the total mass and final velocity of the two objects
(which stick together) after the collision. The conservation of linear momentum can be
written as

Solving this equation for vf, the final velocity of the two-object system gives

SOLUTION
Large-mass object (8.0 kg) moving initially: Assume that, before the collision, the
object is moving in the + direction so that v01 = +25 m/s. Then,

The final speed is .

Small-mass object (3.0 kg) moving initially:

The final speed is .

11. REASONING Using Equation 7.10, we can calculate the location of the center of
mass of John and Barbara:

By calculating John and Barbara’s center of mass before and after they change positions,
we can determine how far and in what direction their center of mass move as a result of
the switch.

SOLUTION

The center of mass moves by an amount . Since it moves from

the 6.3-m point to the 4.7-m point, the center of mass moves