A scene in a movie has a stuntman falling through a floor onto a bed in the room below. The plan is to have the actor fall on his back, but a researcher has been hired to investigate the safety of this stunt. When the researcher examines the mattress, she sees that it effectively has a spring constant of 65144 N/m for the area likely to be impacted by the stuntman, but it cannot depress more than 14.21 cm without injuring him.
A scene in a movie has a stuntman falling through a floor onto a bed in the room below. The plan is to have the actor fall on his back, but a researcher has been hired to investigate the safety of this stunt. When the researcher examines the mattress, she sees that it effectively has a spring constant of 65144 N/m for the area likely to be impacted by the stuntman, but it cannot depress more than 14.21 cm without injuring him.
To approach this problem, consider a simplified version of the situation. A mass falls through a height of 3.32 m before landing on a spring of force constant 65144 N/m. Calculate the maximum mass that can fall on the mattress without exceeding the maximum compression distance.
maximum mass:
Is the stunt safe?
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