Question

Having inspected the engine status and the distance from the Zorn Collective ship, Zeta Anderson plots a course back to the Terran Confederation (without her crew, but with the stolen intelligence). She straps into the captain's chair (which has springs for its suspension, spring constant 5000 N/m). She fires the engines at an acceleration of 0.5 g for 45 seconds to adjust her trajectory. The springs in her chair compress 10cm during the course correction. When she stops firing the engines, her chair oscillates from the energy stored in the springs. What is the frequency of this oscillation? If she instead had accelerated at 1 g, how would the oscillation frequency be different? Recall from previous problems, Zeta's mass is 55 kg.

Answer 1