Physics Practice Problems – Part 2
1. Lookout Mountain, which overlooks the Tennessee River Valley near Chattanooga, Tennessee, was of great
strategic importance during the Civil War. Today, some of the artillery used in the war remains at the park
located on top of the mountain. Suppose one of these cannons fired a projectile horizontally with a speed of
430 m/s, so that the projectile landed at a horizontal distance of 4020 m from the cannon. How high would the
ridge of the mountain be with respect to the valley below?
2. In 1977, a helicopter at the heliport atop the 59-story Pan Am building in New York fell over, causing the
rapidly-turning rotor blades to splinter. One of these fragments landed about 101 m away, near the corner of
Madison Avenue and 43rd Street. Suppose the fragment moved off the building horizontally with a speed of
14.25 m/s. Use this information to find the height of the Pan Am building.
3. A baseball is thrown with an initial speed of 15.0 m/s. If the ball’s horizontal displacement is 17.6 m, at what
angle with respect to the ground is the ball pitched? Use the trigonometric identity 2(sin θ)(cos θ) = sin (2θ) to
solve for θ.
4. A football is kicked so that its initial speed is 23.1 m/s. If the football reaches a maximum height of 16.9 m, at
what angle with respect to the ground is the ball kicked?
5. Two tugboats pull a barge across the harbor. One boat exerts a force of 7.5 x 104 N north, while the second boat
exerts a force of 9.5 x 104 N at 15.0° north of west. Precisely, in what direction does the barge move?
6. Three workers move a car by pulling on three ropes. The first worker exerts a force of 6.00 x 102 N to the north,
the second a force of 7.50 x 102 N to the east, and the third 6.75 x 102 N at 30.0° south of east. In what precise
direction does the car move?
7. A house is lifted from its foundations onto a truck for relocation. The house is pulled upward by a net force of
2850 N. This force causes the house to move from rest to an upward speed of 15 cm/s in 5.0 s. What is the
mass of the house?
8. Suppose an empty grocery cart rolls downhill in a parking lot. The cart undergoes a constant increase in
speed of 1.0 m/s over a 5.0 s interval. If the downhill force acting on the cart is 18.0 N and the uphill force due
to friction is 15.0 N, what is the cart’s mass?
9. A ship launched from a dry-dock slides into the water at a constant velocity. Suppose the force of gravity
that pulls the ship downward along the dry-dock is 4.26 x 107 N. If the coefficient of kinetic friction between the
ship’s hull and the dry-dock is 0.25, what is the magnitude of the normal force that the dry-dock exerts on the
ship’s hull?
10. If the incline of the dry-dock in problem 1 is 10.0°, what is the ship’s mass?
11. Blocks of ice are slid down a metal chute with an incline of 12.0° above the horizontal. The blocks undergo
a constant acceleration of 1.22 m/s2. What is the coefficient of kinetic friction between the ice and the chute?
12. A force of 1760 N is required to start moving a bundle of wooden planks up a ramp. If the ramp’s incline is
17° and the mass of the planks is 266 kg, what is the coefficient of static friction between the planks and the
ramp?
Problem #1
Problem #2
Problem #3
Problem #4
Problem #5
Problem #6
Problem #7
Problem #8
Problem #9
Problem #10
Problem #11
Problem #12