Linear Motion

Given A cyclist is traveling at 8 m/s on a straight road A car 40 m ahead begins constant acceleration from rest (away from the cyclist) Find Part 1 If the cyclist continues at constant speed, he can just catch the car. What is the acceleration of the car? Part 2 Using the acceleration computed in Part 1, how near the car would the cyclist have gotten had he been cycling at 6 m/s? Solution Part 1 We can draw graphs of speed versus time for each of the players. For the purpose of this graph, we will pick three arbitrary values for the acceleration of the car. The magenta curve represents the bicycle; the blue curve represents the car. The speed of the bicycle is given as constant at 8 m/s, so is graphed as a horizontal line. The speed of the car increases linearly from zero according to its acceleration.
speed m s 30 25 20
Out[51]=

15 10 5 time s

10

15

20

25

Player Speed versus Time

players.nb

The area under these curves represents the distance each vehicle travels. We can also draw graphs of distance versus time for each of the players, the area under each of the curves above. For the purpose of this graph, we will show the same three values for acceleration, and we will show the car starting 40 m ahead of the bicycle at time=0.
distance m

400

300
Out[50]=

200

100

10

15

20

25

time s

Player Distance versus Time

You can see that, depending on the acceleration, the bicyclist may a) NOT catch the car (dashed blue curve), b) JUST catch the car (solid blue curve), or c) PASS the car (dotted blue curve). In the last case, eventually, the car will accelerate to a sufficient speed to pass the bicyclist, so there are two points at which they are the same distance down the road at the same time. For Part 1, we are interested in finding the acceleration that gives us the solid blue curve, that makes there be exactly one point at which the bicycle and car are at the same spot on the road. If we subtract the expression for the bicyclist distance from the expression for s the car distance, we get the distance between the two players. For an acceleration s of , that is a
In[11]:=

distanceBetweenPlayers

1 2 a t^2

40

8t

This can be graphed as

players.nb

distance m 80

60

40
Out[49]=

20

5 20

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time s

Distance Between Players

We recognize the equation for distanceBetweenPlayers to be a quadratic equation. If we set that distance equal to zero, we get a quadratic equation that we can use to solve for the desired value of acceleration. In standard form, the equation may be written as (a/2) t^2 - 8 t + 40 = 0 At this point, we introduce a bit of a tutorial regarding quadratic equations. A general quadratic equation in standard form is usually seen written as a x^2 + b x + c = 0 The constants {a, b, c} represent the coefficients in the equation, and the variable x represents the variable in the equation. In our equation, our variable is t instead of x, and our (corresponding) coefficients are {a/2, -8, +40}. The solution to the general equation can be found to be

x=

b2 4ac 2a

Consider the expression under the radical. It is called the discriminant. discriminant = b
2

4ac

When the discriminant is positive, the square root is a non-zero real number and there are two solutions for x. They are

x= x=

b b

discriminant 2a discriminant 2a

(note the changed sign in front of the radical)

In the graph above, these correspond to the points near t=6 and t=26 on the dotted blue curve where it has the value distance=0.

discriminant = b
4 players.nb

4ac

When the discriminant is positive, the square root is a non-zero real number and there are two solutions for x. They are

x= x=

b b

discriminant 2a discriminant 2a

(note the changed sign in front of the radical)

In the graph above, these correspond to the points near t=6 and t=26 on the dotted blue curve where it has the value distance=0. When the discriminant is zero, there is exactly one solution. In the graph above, this corresponds to the point t=10. In our general quadratic equation, the one solution in this case is x=

b 2a

When the discriminant is negative, there is no square root among real numbers. (The square root is an imaginary number.) This case corresponds to the dashed blue curve in the graph above. At no time is the distance between players equal to zero. Based on this discussion of quadratic equations, we see that for the bicyclist to just catch the car, we want the quadratic equation for the distanceBetweenPlayers to have exactly one solution (solid blue curve). This will be the case when the discriminant of the equation is zero. We compute the discriminant of the distanceBetweenPlayers equation as discriminant = 8 2 - 4 (a/2) (+40) (the square of the t coefficient minus 4 times the product of the other two) discriminant = 64 - 80 a Setting this to zero, we have discriminant = 0 = 64 - 80 a 80 a = 64 a=

64 4 = 80 5

For the bicyclist to just catch the car, the car must accelerate at 4/5 m/s2 . Part 2 Consider again the graph of distance versus time for each of the players. In this graph, we choose the acceleration curve where a=4/5, and we decrease the bicyclist speed to 6 m//s. (The original bicyclist speed is shown as a dashed s s magenta line.)

Consider again the graph of distance versus time for each of the players. In this 5 players.nb graph, we choose the acceleration curve where a=4/5, and we decrease the bicyclist speed to 6 m//s. (The original bicyclist speed is shown as a dashed s s magenta line.)
distance m 300 250 200
Out[53]=

150 100 50 time s

10

15

20

25

Player Distance versus Time

It is much easier to see where the distance between players is a minimum if we look at the graph of that.
distance m 80

60

40
Out[56]=

20

5 20

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15

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time s

Distance Between Players

For a quadratic expression in standard form a x2 b x c The extreme value is found to be where x=

b 2a

a x2
6 players.nb

bx

The extreme value is found to be where x=

b 2a

Using this information, we can find the minimum distance between players in Part 2. With a = 4/5 and the bicycle speed = 6 m/s, the new equation for distanceBetweenPlayers is distanceBetweenPlayers = ((1/2)(4/5) t 2 + 40) - (6 t) In standard form, this is distanceBetweenPlayers = (2/5) t 2 - 6 t + 40 From our equation above for the extreme value, we know the minimum will occur when t = -(-6)/(2(2/5)) t = 6(5/4) t = 30/4 = 7.5 That extreme value will be distanceBetweenPlayers = (2/5) (7.52 ) - 6 (7.5) + 40 distanceBetweenPlayers = 17.5 Our distances are all in meters, so we have found the minimum distance between the bicyclist traveling at 6 m/s and the car accelerating at 4/5 m/s2 (with a 40 m head start) to be 17.5 m.
distance m 20.0

19.5

19.0

Out[60]=

18.5

18.0

17.5

10

time s

Distance Between Players