1) A Northwest Airlines plane flies 100 km NW then 100 km SW then 5 km
straight down. A Midwest Express flight starting from the same location
flies 50 km E and 5 km straight down. What is the distance between
the passengers on the two flights?
2) A congressman sits on the edge of a merry-go-round of radius 10 m which
rotates at constant angular velocity 1 rad/s. He/she throws a budget
proposal of mass 10 kg horizontally
in the radial direction with speed in the moving frame of 10 m per second.
The initial altitude is 2 m. What is the distance in meters between the
person and budget when the budget hits the ground?
3) A graduate student pushes a cart of mass M =100 kg along the floor. The cart holds
an inclined plane on which a copy (m = 2 kg) of Electrodynamics by J.D. Jackson
slides
with coefficient of static friction 0.5. For a given inclination angle,
what force must the student exert on the cart to keep Jackson from
sliding.
4) A square plate of frozen KoolAid has thickness 10 cm. Estimate the largest plate
that can be picked up by students if they can only squeeze together and
grab on at the edges of the plate.