Racecars traveling at a constant speed

Flash Animation by Mark Cowan
ePhysics, UCLA
Questions Dealing with Distance
  1. The red car is 6,000 meters from the finish line and is traveling at a speed of 45 meters/second at a certain instant in time. The green car is a distance d from the finish line and is traveling at a speed of 60 meters/second at this very same instance of time. What is d assuming that the race is a tie?
  2. The red car is 6,000 meters from the finish line and is traveling at a speed of 90 meters/second at a certain instant in time. The green car is a distance d from the finish line and is traveling at a speed of 60 meters/second at this very same instance of time. What is d assuming that the race is a tie?
Questions Dealing with Time
  1. The red car is 4,500 meters from the finish line and the green car is 6,000 meters from the finish line at a certain instant in time. The red car crosses the finish line 10 seconds later. How long will it take the green car to cross the finish line assuming that the speed of the green car is 4/3 times faster than the speed of the red car? Who wins the race?
  2. The red car is 6,000 meters from the finish line and the green car is 9,000 meters from the finish line at a certain instant in time. How long will it take the green car to pass the red car assuming that the red car is traveling at a speed of 30 meters/second while the green car is traveling at a speed of 75 meters/second. Who will win the race?
Questions Dealing with Speed
  1. The top speed of our race cars is 90 meters/second. Is this fast or slow for a race car?
  2. What is a typical speed of a car driving on the freeway (assume that the car is not stuck in traffic)? ...on a city street?
  3. The red car is 6,000 meters from the finish line and is traveling at a speed of 60 meters/second at a certain instant in time. The green car is a distance 9,000 meters from the finish line at this very same instance of time. What is the speed of the green car assuming that the race is a tie?
  4. The red car is 6,000 meters from the finish line and is traveling at a speed of 60 meters/second at a certain instant in time. The green car is a distance 3,000 meters from the finish line at this very same instance of time. What is the speed of the green car assuming that the race is a tie?