Question

Imagine a small child whose legs are half as long as her parent’s legs. If her parent can walk at maximum speed V, at what maximum speed can the child walk?

Answer 1

Answer:

$\boxed{v=\frac {V}{\sqrt {2}}}$

Explanation:

We know that speed is given by dividing distance by time or multiplying length and frequency. The speed of the father will be given by Lf where L is the length of the father’s leg ad f is the frequency.

We know that frequency of simple pendulum follows that $f=\frac {1}{2\pi} \sqrt {\frac {g}{l}}$

Now, the speed of the father will be $V=Lf= L\times (\frac {1}{2\pi} \sqrt {\frac {g}{l}})$ while for the child the speed will be $v=\frac {L}{2}\times (\frac {1}{2\pi} \sqrt {\frac {g}{0.5l}})$

The ratio of the father’s speed to the child’s speed will be

$\frac {V}{v}=\frac {\frac {L}{2}\times (\frac {1}{2\pi} \sqrt {\frac {g}{0.5l}})}{ L\times (\frac {1}{2\pi} \sqrt {\frac {g}{l}})}\\\frac {V}{v}=\frac {\sqrt {2}}{2}\\\boxed{v=\frac {V}{\sqrt {2}}}$