Answer to Question #161070 in Physics for luna

Question

A car traveling at a constant speed of 36.5 m/s passes a trooper hidden behind a billboard. One second after the speeding car passes the billboard, the trooper sets off in chase with a constant acceleration of 3.10 m/s². How long does it take the trooper to overtake the speeding car? Solve this problem by a graphical method. On the same graph, plot position versus time for the car and the trooper.

Answer 1

It takes the trooper 25.509 s to overcome the car. The equation for the distance of the car is $36.5t$, the equation for the trooper distance is $3.1(t-1)^2/2$. This gives us the following: