A 1000kg truck traveling at 15m/s has the choice of hitting a brick wall or a line of bushes. Which is the better choice. Use momentum, impulse and law of conservation of momentum in your reasoning

The better choice is the line of bushes.

Explanation:

Momentum is defined as the force in a time interval. But the linear momentum is also equal to the product of mass by Velocity.

Now assuming that the truck hits the wall in a very short time interval, i.e. around 0.5 [s], we can calculate the force of the impact.

While if you enter a region of bushes. It won't crash with a solid object. Therefore the bushes will not develop a great impact force on the truck.

work: w = fd (given)

work done by chet   =50*1 = 50 j

work done by mika =40*2 = 80 j

work done by sara =30*1.5 = 45 j

work done by bill =60*0.5 = 30 j

students in order from the greatest amount of work done to the least is mika> chet> sara> bill

hence option (b) is correct.

the force on the thing and the distance the force moves the thing