Final answer:
In a situation where a moving glider collides with another glider at rest, and they stick together, one glider can't be at rest post-collision. Momentum is conserved, causing both gliders to move together with a common velocity.
Step-by-step explanation:
The collision described is an example of a perfectly inelastic collision, where two objects collide and stick together. In such a collision, momentum is conserved, but kinetic energy is not. This is because the system's kinetic energy is converted into other forms of energy upon the impact, such as heat, sound, or deformation energy.
In the scenario where one glider is moving and collides with another glider at rest, and they stick together after the collision, only one glider can't remain at rest post-collision. Instead, both gliders will move together with a common velocity determined by the conservation of momentum. If friction is ignored and there are no external forces, the momentum before and after the collision will be the same for the system of two gliders.
Using the conservation of momentum for the calculation: if mA is the mass of the first glider mB is the mass of the second glider at rest, and 'v' is the initial velocity of the first glider, then the conservation of momentum can be expressed as:
mA * v = (mA + mB) * vfinal
Where final is the common velocity of both gliders after the collision.
If there were friction or external forces, these would indeed affect the center-of-mass velocity, both before and after the collision, by adding non-conservative forces to the system.