Question

Please help!! A ferris wheel at an amusement park has a radius of 55ft and makes 3 revolutions-per-minute. The passenger seats are located 50ft from the axle.
a) Determine the angular and linear velocity of a person riding the wheel.
b) Find total distance traveled by a passenger if the ride lasts 7 minutes. Give your answer in miles per hour. You should show unit conversion, but do not multiply large numbers out.

Answer 1

If I'm not mistaken: the radius from the passengers on the seats is 50. The revolutions should still be the same. 3 per minute.

The circumference of the (imagine that the ferris wheel ended at the passengers; hope I made sense) C=2pi*r = 100 pi ft

every minute it does 3 revolutions so every minute it travels 300 pi ft. and for 7 minutes it be 300pi*7 = 2100pi ft.

not sure to consider 300 large or not.. bu t yea: 300pi*7
this was for B..
A I really don't know.

Answer 2

but taking into consideration the distance traveled by the person in a minute which we said was 300 pi ft. To find linear velocity it is basically xf-xi/change in time

300pi-0/1 minute velocity thus is 300pi ft/minute

not sure of angular velocity, but I should be reviewing it later today or tomorrow for a physics. So I'll get back to you on that.

Answer 3

Thank you so much for your help!!! I'll be looking for your next reply..... :)

Answer 4

In my book I have that the average angular speed which I'll be referring as v_avg
= change in angle/change in time. where the units for this is (rad/s)


The total change in the angle is of 3 revolutions.

since 1 revolution = 2 pi then

So if 1rev = 2pi ; then 3 rev is 6 pi.

change in angle = 6 pi.

As for the change in time, well it was told in the statement that it did 3 revolutions per minute; so the change in time is just 1 minute. or 60 seconds.

we plug this in the formula and

V_avg=6pi/60

we get an angular speed of .314 rad/s

Answer 5

Hope this is as helpful as before :)

Answer 6

Thank you :D!!1