In: Physics
Bonham the dog stands at the far end of a 14 ft, uniform boat pointing to shore (the drawings below are not exactly to scale). The boat is twice as massive as Bonham. Initially, the dog is 20 ft from shore. Eying his owner on shore, Bonham trots to the front of the boat and stops. Assuming no friction and no water current, and also that he walks the full 14 ft length of the boat (meaning his length is small by comparison), how close is Bonham from shore then?
The centre of mass of the system remains stationary at same place. We use this to find the required distance of the dog from shore as shown below