A roller coaster car with a mass of 500 kg at the top of a hill that is 30 m high. Without friction, what would its kinetic energy be as it reached the bottom of the hill?

Wendy Larsen

Wendy Larsen

Answered question

2023-01-09

A roller coaster car with a mass of 500 kg at the top of a hill that is 30 m high. Without friction, what would its kinetic energy be as it reached the bottom of the hill?

Answer & Explanation

Josselyncx6

Josselyncx6

Beginner2023-01-10Added 10 answers

The kinetic energy of the roller coaster car at the bottom of the hill would be equal to its gravitational potential energy at the top of the hill, according to the law of conservation of energy, assuming no friction between the roller coaster car and the hill and disregarding air resistance.
The roller coaster car is perfectly still at the top of the hill, so all of its mechanical energy is only in the form of potential energy at that point.
Because there are no energy losses from friction in this highly ideal scenario, all of the potential energy would have been converted to kinetic energy at the bottom of the hill.
The law of conservation of mechanical energy states that the total mechanical energy in a system is always conserved.
Let KE denote Kinetic Energy
As an equation, the relationship would be:
mgh=12mv2

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