- #1
Bashyboy
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Homework Statement
A car is behind a truck going 25 m/s on the highway. The car's driver looks for an oportunity to pass, guessing that his car can accelerate at 1.0 m/s^2. He gauges that he has to cover the 20 m length of the truck, plus 10 m clear room at the rear of the truck and 10 m at the front of it. In an oncoming lane, he sees a car approaching, probably also traveling at 25 m/s. He estimates that the car is about 400 m away. Should he attempt the pass?
I know the displacement of the truck is x = 25 m/s*t
and that the displacement of the car is x = 25 m/s*t + 1/2(1.0 m/s^2)t^2.
I have this feeling that I am suppose to set this two equations equal to each other, and then solve for time, which will give me the time the car passes the truck. But I can't seem to figure out why this is true. What does it mean, physically, setting these two equations together?
Also, I try to preview my post, but it won't display latex, so I don't even know if I typed it in correctly. How do I get around this?
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