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The Mathematics Behind Stopping a Car
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Thu Jul 11 2002
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The Mathematics Behind Stopping a Car Question: if it takes 20 feet to stop a car going 20 MPH, how far does it take to stop a car going 40 MPH? 1. 10 feet. 2. 20 feet. 3. 40 feet. 4. 80 feet. The answer, which surprises nearly everyone, is (4) 80 feet (neglecting the driver's reaction time). This is because the energy of a moving car is proportional to its mass times the square of its velocity, or: A equation that takes into account a typical driver's reaction time, is: This equation measures real-world distances, thus it has actual numbers in it. It predicts stopping distance in feet for a given velocity in miles per hour. A reaction time of 1.5 seconds is allowed for the driver to commence stopping. The factor 5280/3600 simply converts the distanced traveled while reacting into feet per second. Here is a table of typical...
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