Question

Drag cars are designed to cover distances of about 6 seconds. During this time, the cars accelerate very rapidly from a standing start. At the end of 6 seconds, a drag car reaches a speed of 150 m/s. What is the acceleration of the drag car, assuming it starts from rest

Answer 1

Explanation:

we must assume a constant acceleration during these 6 seconds. we have no additional information. therefore, whitout that assumption, this cannot be solved (many greetings to your teacher : he/she needs to be more careful with the problem definitions).

an acceleration is specified in

distance / (time period)²

in our case, we are aiming for meters per (1 second)² or simply m/s².

so, we are looking for x m/s².

the principle of a constant acceleration works like an arithmetic sequence with n being the number of observed time intervals (seconds in our case).

every second x is added to the speed (starting with 0 m/s), so that after 6 seconds of constant acceleration we added 6 times x to the speed.

so, the speed at the end is

6x = 150

x = 150/6 = 25

so, the constant acceleration of the car is 25m/s².