Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-1-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/5/solution

Choose the cylinder's velocity to be , and the ball's laboratory velocity to be . By Galilean velocity addition, the ball's velocity relative to the cylinder is
For a suitably centred entry without hitting a wall, the cylinder's axis must be parallel to this relative velocity. Its oriented angle to the cylinder's direction of travel is therefore
Equivalently, , with the quadrant chosen from the two components. For ,
Thus the extra tilt relative to the ball's original direction is approximately . The use of also covers nearly transverse incidence, where taking an unqualified inverse tangent could select the wrong axis direction.

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