Question
What is the linear momentum of a truck of mass 5000 kg that is speeding at 30 meters per second?
{Answer: Linear momentum of the truck will be 150,000 kgm/s}
Here is how i arrived at my answer:
Data
The Mass of the truck, m = 5000 kilograms = 5000 kg
The speed of the truck is 30 ms-1 [We can equally abbreviate meter per second as m/s]
Unknown
Linear momentum, P =?
Formula
We will apply the formula below to solve the problem
Linear momentum (P) = Mass (m) x Velocity (v)
This implies
P = mv
Solution
We can now insert our data into the above formula
P = 5000 kg x 30 m/s = 150,000 kgms-1
Therefore, the linear momentum of a truck of mass 5000 kg and speed 30 m/s will be 150,000 kilograms meter per second
Explanation
Here is some important points you will need to understand
What is Linear Momentum?
Linear momentum is defined as the product of mass and the velocity of a body. The formula for calculating linear momentum is
Linear momentum (P) = Mass (m) x Velocity (v)
Which can be written as P = mv
Linear momentum is a vector quantity. This is because it has magnitude and direction.
After reading a question on linear momentum, you will need to extract your data from the problem. You will need to identify the mass and the velocity from the question.
After identifying your data, you can go ahead to multiply the mass by the velocity to obtain the linear momentum.
Remember that the S.I unit of linear momentum is kilogram meter per second (kgm/s).
You may also like to read:
what is the system’s potential energy when its kinetic energy is equal to 34e?
Newton’s Second Law Practice Problems
Source