Question

A little car has a maximum acceleration of 2.57 m/s 2. What is the maximum acceleration of the little car if it tows another car that has the same mass?

Answer 1

This is a bit of a conceptual exercise as opposed to finding a number. We know that the acceleration of an object is just the force applied to that object divided by its mass.\[\frac{F}{m}=a\] So if you were to have twice the mass (pulling the other car) then you would have half the acceleration as you did before:\[\frac{F}{2m}=a\]