Question

Tug of war in outer space

Suppose that Amy and Bob are two astronauts floating deep in outer space, where there is no gravity or friction to interfere, and they decide to have a tug of war. They agree that the loser of this is the one who crosses over the halfway between them first. Bob has a larger mass than Amy, but Amy is stronger than Bob. They begin at rest relative to each other. Assume that they keep a firm grip on the rope and that the rope's mass is small enough to be ignored.

Who will win this tug of war? Or is it a tie?Or is it impossible to determine that? Explain your thinking

Hint: Think carefully about Newtons 2nd and 3rd laws.

Answer 1

Okay, that's an interesting question.

First of all, let's understand why a person wins a tug of war in the first place. On earth, a person who weighs more and has more muscle strength will win for sure.

However, this is not the case in the micro gravity of space.

When we pull on a rope the rope pulls back on us as per Newton's third law.

Here is the diagram

so,

if both Amy and bod will fly towards each other and will have a nice Hug because of the force applied by rope on each of them.