Think Physics (Introduction and Question 1) - Page 2

I would think that if the dog is walking with the owner, if you threw it backwards, it takes some time to turn around.

If the owner can throw it equally strong in every direction, the stick would go the furthest if he threw it forward, but the dog is already moving in that direction so s/he doesn't have to turn around and accelerate

I really have no clue so I'm gonna say forward, a)

If you take this question as it is given to you (without raising any questions of your own, I would say d. If micronesia throws the stick multiple times it really does'nt matter where as yubee(lol) will be running constantly. If anything else applies though, I would say b.

any direction

B. assuming that the throw in any direction is equally far. then, if you throw backwards, you will have walked an extra vel_walk * time_dog, where vel_walk is your velocity in the forward direction and time_dog is the time it takes for the dog to get back to you, and likewise the dog will have run that extra amount as well.

b. And I bet that lots of others already mentioned why.

If it takes a negligible amount of time to take the stick from the dog and throw it again, one can assume that the dog is running the whole time, so it doesn't matter which direction Micronesia throws it in.

However, if it does take a certain amount of time to do this, Micronesia would want to throw the stick in the opposite direction of his movement, assuming he always throws it some distance D, regardless of direction, as this would lengthen each iteration of throwing and retrieving, and thereby reduce the time that Yubee is waiting for Micronesia to throw.

Oh wait, I think I understand now. My answer was assuming that micro was walking, threw the stick then stood still immediately after

If micro keeps walking, and assuming he can throw it with the same strength (I see this as initial speed with which the stick gets thrown) the stick will have a velocity (micro's walking speed + throwing velocity), so the stick moves with the same speed relative to micro regardless of direction

I'm not that good with imagining stuff, but now that I think about it, if you throw forward, the thing will move faster (thus farther) but micro walks toward the dog, but if you throw backwards, the thing will move slower so the dog doesn't take long to retrieve it, but takes longer for the dog to go back to micro. I'm having trouble working this out in my head, but it seems that the forward and backward times will be the same, so I'll go with doesn't matter

well you have to make a few assumptions, such as the dog has constant velocity and that the owner throws the stick equally far in each direction, otherwise you'd be able to come up with countless scenarios and it would be impossible to answer the question, also the time it takes for micro to take the stick from the dog should be negligible. So, as someone mentioned, it will just be velocity*time = distance, and that's the only thing that counts. If you throw it backwards, the dog has to run more with each throw, but you will have to throw less times, they are just countering each other.

d, the yubee us always running