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Re: Impulse

At 8:25 PM -0600 on 10/30/01, cliff parker wrote
George said,

Impulse is already a well-defined concept! Impulse is the total change in
momentum caused by application of a force over some time interval. It can
be found by integrating Fdt, but it's still the change in momentum.

Is this view widely held? I have interpreted the definitions of impulse
that I have seen to be the application of a force over a period of time.
Impulse causes a change in momentum but it is not exactly the same thing as
a change in momentum. An equal sign does not mean that both sides of an
equation are the same thing.

Newton's second law can be written (as Newton actually INTENDED it)

F = dp/dt

He NEVER wrote F = ma (even in Latin).
He anticipated Einstein's work and chose the dp/dt form which stays
correct in Relativity. ;-)

cross multiplying gives you the impulse-momentum relation that is
being discussed.

It don't GET no simpler than this!

My HS kids do momentum before we introduce quantified force.
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