QCAA Specialist Mathematics 2024 Paper 2 Question 15

Question 15 of Paper 2 of the 2024 QCAA Specialist Mathematics exam was all about collision problems and determining the minimum distance between two particles. The key things that we consider with collision problems is whether particles are at the same place, at the same time. The same kind of thinking can apply to points as well. Here, the key was to set components to a known point, find a t value, and then verify this t value corresponded to the other components. We were then able to determine the distance between two points using the magnitude of one vector subtract the other.