Can anyone help me with this physics problem?

Question

A 10.0 g bullet is fired into and embeds itself in a 2.30 kg block attached to a spring with a spring constant of 23.6 N/m and whose mass is negligible. How far is the spring compressed if the bullet has a speed of 300 m/s just before it strikes the block, and the block slides on a frictionless surface? (Note: You must use conservation of momentum in this problem.)

Answer 1

conservation of momentum says that  total momentum will be the same before and after a collision

so m*v(of bullet before collision)+m*v (block after collision)=(m(of bullet)+m(ofblock)*v(after collision)

the second half has the two masses added together because the problem says the bullet embeds itself in the block, it is therefore now one mass instead of two

the bullets m is in grams, so put this in kg, and it's v is 300 (from the problem)

so you have all variables of this equation except the final velocity of the block with the bullet embedded in, which you can find since it is the only variable in that relationship.

now you know how fast the block was moving, and what it's mass is after the collision, and can use hookes spring law that states  F= -kx where k is the spring constant (given in your problem) to find how far it will compress.

sorry i don't have time right now to actually do the calculations, but this should be enough.

Answer 2

umm i wouldnt trust yahoo answers for this question but good luck.