Question

You’re on a bike going 30mph (13.41m/s) and a squirrel jumps infront of you 60m infront. You apply the brakes to not hit the squirrel, what is the deceleration to not hit the squirrel?

Answer 1

We will have that the deceleration can be determined as follows:

First, we recall that for linear accelerated motions the following is true:

`v_f^2=v_i^2+2ad`

So:

`\begin{gathered} \Rightarrow(0m/s)^2=(13.41m/s)^2+2a(60m)\Rightarrow2a(60m)=-(13.41m/s)^2 \\ \Rightarrow a=(-(13.41m/s)^2)/(2(60m))\Rightarrow a=-1.4985675...m/s^2 \\ \\ \Rightarrow a\approx-1.5m/s^2 \end{gathered}`

So, the deceleration must be approximately of 1.5 m/s^2.