That trip problem definitely challenged my knowledge in Physics. My first answer to the problem was just to guess-I had a 25% of getting it right! It seemed way to complicated, and I started getting scared that this was truly what Physics would be; complicated questions that were almost impossible to answer without your brain hurting. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to get the correct answer. I acknowledged that I had the average speed and the distance traveled for two sections of the full trip; I could just plug these two numbers into the average speed equation to get the time. Everything seemed to be going well, until I finished those two problems and was more confused than in the beginning.
Why did this have to be so complicated? Why couldn't it just be a simple answer? I was stumped. I had two different times, both a half hour, but I still had to manage to figure out how fast the motorist would have to go, to catch up to his desired speed of 40km/h. It seemed the more I did, the more confusing I got. I thought of the information I had. The motorist had so far gone 30km and still had 10 more to go. He had already driven for one hour-but wait; wasn't the motorist supposed to go 40km/h? Didn't that mean that he had already failed his goal? He had already gone one hour, so to accomplish his goal, he would have to go faster than the speed of light. That was an answer on the sheet! I had finally understood what was being asked of me! The motorist couldn't possibly achieve this goal; he would have to be drive 10 km in less than 0 seconds. It was finally starting to come together.
While it might seem confusing, the motorist would indeed have to be traveling faster than the speed of light. This is because it took him an hour to go 30 km. His desire was to go 40km/h throughout the duration of the trip. He still has 10km to go but no time left on the clock. To still achieve his initial goal, he would have to travel 10km in 0 seconds, and I don't think any car is that fast! To get this answer, you have to plug in the numbers into the average speed equation (total distance covered/time interval) and find the time. By plugging in both separate parts of the trip, you find out that it he has already gone 1 hour. It might seem complicated at first glance, but after really putting forth effort it seems so much more simple.
This was definitely a good experience for me to look back on in the future. While it might have been easy for me to simply guess an answer that seemed the most reasonable, I was ultimately able to figure out the correct answer by using the equations that I learned in class. It helped me realize that everything is not as hard as it seems at a first glance. It definitely just goes to show that hard work pays off in the end!
Hey Anna, i find it interesting that you go scared due to the trip problem. My response to the problem was over confidence. I thought for sure i had the right answer at first, but i didnt. One thing that is similar between our methods is that i kind of guessed to find my answer, too. Also we both were stumped once we realized the driver had already gone for an hour. We both failed which then lead to success in our answers. One thing that is different is that you said we found the answer but using equations i thought we found it because we were forced to think about the outrageous answer and reroute our brains to allow an answer like that to be a possibility. One question i have is are you ready for more difficult and confusing problems like this that will come later in Physics?
ReplyDeleteAnna in response to your blog I thought you did a terrific job not letting the question that you were assigned get to you by flat out confusing you. It was confusing because you thought that it would be simple by just finding the product of the distance traveled and the average traveling speed and that would be all. Then you fell upon an obstacle that meant you had to do it again. You new you were out of time but still had 10km to go. So you rearranged the question and it came out with the right results. Anna one thing that I concluded you should have done better was find what information you were given and in this problem you were supposed to find the time traveled. And which with this information that you later found you needed to use the Average speed equation (total distance covered/time interval) and find the time. Which later you did and found that you actually need a faster average speed because cars cannot simply travel faster than the speed of light.
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