An actor shoots a gun at a special stunt wall, which explodes when hit by the bullet. The wall is 80.8 m away, and the actor hears the sound of the explosion 0.430 s after shooting the gun. What is the average speed of the bullet?

Use 343m/s as the speed of sound

can someone solve this?

1 Answer
May 30, 2018

Let average speed of bullet be =v_b=vb
Time taken by bullet to reach stunt wall t_b="Distance"/"Speed"tb=DistanceSpeed

t_b=80.8/v_b\ s

After explosion time taken by sound to reach actor's ear

t_s=80.8/343\ s

Total time elapsed after shooting of gun and hearing of explosion

t_T=t_b+t_s=80.8/v_b+80.8/343\ s

Equating it to the given value we get

80.8/v_b+80.8/343=0.430
=>80.8/v_b=0.430-80.8/343
=>v_b=80.8/(0.430-80.8/343)=415.6\ ms^-1