
Topic: Collisions
Concepts: 1D elastic collision, CM frame
Solution:
Initially, mass is moving at towards the mass at rest.

We go to the CM frame (moving at ):

Recall the total linear momentum so in the CM frame (since the CM is at rest by definition). Then after an elastic collision, the velocities just flip directions: The speeds of both objects stay the same which conserves energy. Flipping velocities changes the sign of the momentum. But since so momentum is also conserved.

Lastly, we go back to the ground frame (adding velocity to the right on both objects):

We are given that mass moves to the left with velocity . Thus,
so the answer is B.

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