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Zhalfirin88
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Homework Statement
A car traveling at a constant speed of 108 km/hr passes a trooper hidden behind a billboard. One second after the speeding car passes the billboard, the trooper sets in a chase after the car with a constant acceleration of 3.0 m/s2. How far does the trooper travel before he overtakes the speeding car?
Homework Equations
[tex]\Delta x = v_0 t + \frac{1}{2} a t^2[/tex]
[tex]108 \frac {km}{hr} = 30 \frac {m}{sec}[/tex]
The Attempt at a Solution
Well, since they're both moving along the same axis, I set the equations equal to each other.
[tex]v_0 t = \frac{1}{2} a t^2[/tex]
[tex]v_0 = \frac{1}{2} a t[/tex]
[tex] \frac{2 v_0}{a} = t[/tex]
and I got t = 20. Then,
[tex]\Delta x = \frac{1}{2} a t^2[/tex]
[tex]\Delta x = \frac{1}{2} (30 \frac{m}{s}) (20sec)^2[/tex]
and I got 600 m but that was wrong.
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