A child is sitting on a merry-go-round that is rotating. If the child moves towards the center, what happens to the rotational speed of the merry-go-round?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
A child is sitting on a merry-go-round that is rotating. If the child moves towards the center, what happens to the rotational speed of the merry-go-round?
Increases
Decreases
Remains the same
Becomes zero
As the child moves towards the center, the moment of inertia decreases, causing the rotational speed to increase to conserve angular momentum.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
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Q
Q: A child is sitting on a merry-go-round that is rotating. If the child moves towards the center, what happens to the rotational speed of the merry-go-round?
Solution: As the child moves towards the center, the moment of inertia decreases, causing the rotational speed to increase to conserve angular momentum.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand that a merry-go-round is rotating and has a certain speed.
Step 2: Know that the child sitting on the merry-go-round has mass and contributes to the overall mass distribution.
Step 3: Recognize that when the child moves towards the center, they are reducing the distance from the center of the merry-go-round.
Step 4: Realize that moving towards the center decreases the moment of inertia, which is a measure of how mass is distributed relative to the rotation axis.
Step 5: Remember the principle of conservation of angular momentum, which states that if no external torque acts on a system, its angular momentum remains constant.
Step 6: Since the moment of inertia decreases when the child moves towards the center, the rotational speed must increase to keep the angular momentum constant.
