An athlete crosses a 25-m-wide river by swimming | StudySoup

Textbook Solutions for College Physics

Chapter 3 Problem 65

Question

An athlete crosses a 25-m-wide river by swimming perpendicular to the water current at a speed of 0.5 m/s relative to the water. He reaches the opposite side at a distance 40 m downstream from his starting point. How fast is the water in the river flowing with respect to the ground? What is the speed of the swimmer with respect to a friend at rest on the ground?

Solution

 

Step 1 of 4

In the given problem, a swimmer passes a river by swimming perpendicular to the water current with width \(w=25 m\) with speed \(v_{s w}=0.5 \mathrm{~m} / \mathrm{s}\) relative to water. Swimmer reaches the other end of the river by covering a distance of \(d=40 m\) downstream from the starting point as shown in the figure below. Here we need to calculate the speed of water in the river with respect to ground and also the speed of the swimmer with respect to ground.

1.PNG 

The relative speed is the speed of an object measured from a particular reference frame and it will vary as the reference frame changes. As in the given case it varies for a swimmer relative to water and relative to ground.

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full solution

Title College Physics  1 
Author Paul Peter Urone, Roger Hinrichs
ISBN 9781938168000

An athlete crosses a 25-m-wide river by swimming

Chapter 3 textbook questions

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