Two cars, one traveling north and one traveling west, collide at an intersection.The resulting momentum of the two cars together after the collision is 32 000 kg . m/s N30degreesW.

Question

Find the momentum of each car before the collision.

Answer 1

First we have to understand that physical quantities have no effect to their perpendicular directions.

As North and West are also perpendicular just by dividing the resulting momentum in to North and West directions you get the momentum s of the cars traveling North and West respectively.

So for the car traveling North direction the momentum before collision would be 32000 cos30 = 16000√3 kg m/s and for the car traveling North direction the momentum before collision would be 32000 sin30 = 16000 kg m/s.