Question

A cheetah can accelerate from rest to 24 m/s in 2.0 s. Assuming the acceleration is constant over the time interval, a) what is the magnitude of the acceleration of the cheetah? b) what is the distance traveledby the cheetah in 2.0 s?

Answer 1

Question #14446

The formula for speed (when moving with constant acceleration) is $v(t) = v(0) + at$ .

a) Plugging here $v(t) = 24 \, \text{m/s}, t = 2 \, \text{s}, v(0) = 0 \, \text{m/s}$ , obtain $a = 12 \, \frac{\text{m}}{\text{s}^2}$ .

b) The distance traveled by cheetah is then $S = \frac{a t^2}{2} = \frac{12 \frac{\text{m}}{\text{s}^2} \cdot 4 \cdot s^2}{2} = 24 \, \text{m}$ .