Question

Cracker Delivery
A delivery person supplies crackers to many grocery stores each day. At each store, boxes of crackers are dropped to the ground from the back of the truck before they are carried into the store.

The picture shows a man in a delivery truck holding a box of crackers. There are more boxes of crackers inside the truck.

When customers open packages of crackers, many of the crackers are broken. The delivery driver needs to address this problem but does not have time to carry the boxes out of the truck and set them on the ground himself.

Multiple Choice Question
The delivery person wants to decrease the force of the falling box on the ground. How will decreasing the force of the falling box on the ground affect the boxes of crackers?

A.
The force on the box of crackers will increase because the forces are exerted equally in the same direction.

B.
The force on the box of crackers will decrease because the forces are exerted equally in the same direction.

C.
The force on the box of crackers will decrease because the forces are exerted equally in opposite directions.

D.
The force on the box of crackers will increase because the forces are exerted equally in opposite directions.

Answers

GPT-4o mini
To analyze this problem, we need to understand how forces work when an object falls and hits the ground.

When the delivery person drops a box of crackers, the force that the box exerts on the ground upon impact (the force of the falling box) is related to its mass and the acceleration due to gravity. If the delivery person can decrease the force with which the box hits the ground, this could mean either:

1. Reducing the height from which the box is dropped (which would decrease the falling velocity).
2. Employing some form of cushioning or cushioning impact method.

In terms of understanding the effects of this reduced force on the box of crackers within it, we need to look at the relative forces.

The correct answer to the question would be:

**B. The force on the box of crackers will decrease because the forces are exerted equally in the same direction.**

This is because if the box hits the ground with less force, the impact will cause less force to be transmitted to the box of crackers inside, which should reduce the chance of them breaking upon impact.