A 60.0 kg girl stands up on a stationary floating raft and decides to go into shore. She dives off the 180 kg floating raft with a velocity of 4.0 m/s [W]. Ignore the substantial friction real objects in water experience. What is the momentum of raft as the girl is diving?
would it be zero?? I'm confused

Question

A 60.0 kg girl stands up on a stationary floating raft and decides to go into shore. She dives off the 180 kg floating raft with a velocity of 4.0 m/s [W]. Ignore the substantial friction real objects in water experience. What is the momentum of raft as the girl is diving?
would it be zero?? I'm confused

anonymous · Answer

Formula for momentum is mv

anonymous · Answer

can you solve for the x component of the velocity as the girl dives off?

anonymous · Answer

assuming that the girl jumps off with a velocity of 4 m/s only in the y direction, the momentum of the raft would be 0, but if she jumps off with a velocity of 4 m/s at an angle, then you can solve for the x component of the velocity; and using conservation of momentum solve for the velocity of the raft post-jump.

anonymous · Answer

Yes, the problem seems to assume she dives horizontally,
with a momentum m v and the raft will have an equal and opposite momentum M V = -m v  because just before the dive the total momentum was zero for both objects.