1. In a high temperature experiment an ozone molecule, O3,moving right at 1.5 × 103 m/s, collides head-on with an oxygenmolecule, O2, which is moving to the left at 400 m/s. Both of thesevelocities are for the molecules viewed from the Earth frame. Nochemical reaction takes place but the ozone becomes “vibrationallyexcited” during the interaction so that its internal energyincreases by 1.4 × 10−20 J. You will need the inertias of themolecules, but you can look up the inertias of O2 and O3 moleculesyourself. The collision takes place in gas phase, so the nearestother molecules are very far away compared with the size of themolecules. Molecular scale collisions like this take place inextremely short times (of order 10−15 s is fairly typical).

(a) Is the system of the O2 and O3 molecules isolated?Explain.

(b) Is the system of the O2 and O3 molecules closed?Explain.

(c) What kind of collision is this (elastic, inelastic, totallyinelastic, explosive separation)? Explain.

(d) Find the center of mass velocity of the system, thentransform the velocities of the molecules into the center of massframe. (e) Find the velocity of the ozone molecule after thecollision, in the Earth frame.

(f) What is the minimum relative speed of the two molecules thatwould allow it the ozone molecule to be excited into thisvibrational state with Eint = 1.4 × 10−20 J?