If a car traveling at 70 mph and crashes head-on with another car traveling at 70 mph, does that make it equivalent to hitting something stationary at 140 mph?
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ANSWERS: 8
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Yes.
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That is exactly correct.
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Only if the stationary object will not move once hit.
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Sure does, two objects (a & b) colliding equate to hitting a stationary object at their combined speed (a+b). So if a is traveling 50 mph, b is traveling at 45 mph, it would be the equivalent of hitting a stationary object at 95mph. In your question 70 mph + 70mph = 140 mph collision.
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math and science are fun!
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Logically, yes. Though I think there will be a slight difference to crashing into a car, and say, crashing into a brick wall. The force is the same, yes. I'm not sure which one would be worst. You might go straight through a wall. A car your probably not going to smash through. It depends on what the stationary object is.
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Classically, and for the purpose of your answer, yes. At higher velocities though, you'd NEED to use lorentzian transforms to convert between the two frames. In this case, you'd get about 139.99999999 mph, but it comes in important later on. E.g. 0.5c vs 0.5c would be the equivalent of going into something at about 0.79c or so. I'd have to actually do the calc to be sure but its in that area
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NO!!! Believe it or not! The energy involved in the first collision is half that involved in the second collision. Energy = mass * speed squared. So energy in the first collision is M*70^2 + M*70^2 = 9800M, where M is mass. Energy in the second collision is M*140^2 = 19600M
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