Question

A vessel at rest explodes breaking into three pieces. Two pieces, having equal mass fly off perpendicular to one another with the same speed of 30 m/s. The third piece had three times the mass of each other piece. What are the magnitude and direction of its velocity immediately after the explosion?

What would be the correct way to set up the problem? I think to find the direction I would do the arc tan of (x/y). Be what would be the x and y? How would I find the magnitude of the third piece? THanks for helping! :D




The correct way is to break all momentums into vectors, in the two dimensional plane.