Alfonso and Sarah like to go sky diving together. Alfonso has a mass of 86.0 kg and Sarah has a mass of 57.8 kg. While in free fall together (next to each other), Alfonso pushes Sarah horizontally with a force of 12.9 N. What is the magnitude of Alfonso's horizontal acceleration?

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To determine the magnitude of Alfonso's horizontal acceleration, we can apply Newton's second law of motion, which states that force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration (F = ma).

In this case, Alfonso pushes Sarah with a horizontal force of 12.9 N. Since they are in free fall and assume no other external forces are acting horizontally, this force will cause Alfonso to experience a horizontal acceleration.

First, we need to determine which mass to use in our calculation. The question does not specify whether the force is applied to Alfonso or Sarah. However, as Alfonso pushes Sarah, it is more reasonable to assume that the force is applied to Sarah.

Therefore, we will use Sarah's mass of 57.8 kg as the mass in our calculation.

Now, we can rearrange the equation F = ma to solve for acceleration: a = F/m.

Substituting the known values, we get:
a = 12.9 N / 57.8 kg ≈ 0.223 m/s².

Hence, the magnitude of Alfonso's horizontal acceleration is approximately 0.223 m/s².