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If a car A moves with acceleration 2m/s2due east and car B moves 1m/s2due north. What would be the acceleration of car B with respect to car A. Now , for this. The solution in my textbook is that they just took the resultant. I don’t understand why would we take the resultant of the two vectors as the value for relative velocity aBA.

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    Acceleration is a vector quantity and thus follows vector laws. To car A, B will seem to accelerate west at 2 m/s^2 and accelerate north at 1m/s^2 which u add by pythagoras theorem.
    – Physiker
    Commented Mar 29, 2021 at 1:42
  • Is there any method like “Minimum distance of approach “ used here ? @SarthakGirdhar
    – S.M.T
    Commented Mar 29, 2021 at 1:45
  • Maybe there is. I havent heard that term before.
    – Physiker
    Commented Mar 29, 2021 at 2:02

1 Answer 1

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Since east and north are perpendicular to each other I would like to break it into i and j

Aa=2i

Ab=1j

Ab/a=AbAa

=j-2i

To find the magnitude of this relative acceleration it seems as if we are taking the direct resultant

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