4.I.3A
A lecturer driving his car of mass along the flat at speed accidentally collides with a stationary vehicle of mass . As both vehicles are old and very solidly built, neither suffers damage in the collision: they simply bounce elastically off each other in a straight line. Determine how both vehicles are moving after the collision if neither driver applied their brakes. State any assumptions made and consider all possible values of the mass ratio . You may neglect friction and other such losses.
An undergraduate drives into a rigid rock wall at speed . The undergraduate's car of mass is modern and has a crumple zone of length at its front. As this zone crumples upon impact, it exerts a net force on the car, where is the amount the zone has crumpled. Determine the value of at the point the car stops moving forwards as a function of , where .