Understanding the Effect of a Falling Medicine Ball on a Rolling Wagon

What happens to the speed of the wagon when a 3 kg medicine ball falls off a rolling wagon?

a. The wagon slows down. b. The speed of the wagon does not change. c. The wagon speeds up. d. Additional information about the ball's motion is needed to answer.

Final Answer:

When a 3 kg medicine ball falls off a rolling wagon, the speed of the wagon does not change.

When a 3 kg medicine ball falls off a rolling wagon, the speed of the wagon remains constant. This can be explained by the principles of Newton's third law of motion.

Newton's third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, when the medicine ball falls off the wagon, it exerts a force downward due to gravity. However, this force does not affect the horizontal motion of the wagon.

The reason for this is that the force exerted by the ball falling off the wagon is equal and opposite to the force exerted by the wagon on the ball. As a result, these forces cancel each other out, and there is no net force acting on the wagon in the horizontal direction. Therefore, the speed of the wagon does not change.

Illustrating this principle with a simple example, if you push a book on a table, the book exerts a force back on your hand, but it does not impact your motion. Similarly, the medicine ball falling off the wagon exerts a force back on the wagon, but it does not alter the wagon's speed.