[Phys-L] Re: conservation of angular momentum question

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 20:54 -0500 3/14/05, John S. Denker wrote:

> The angular momentum of the two-cylinder
> system will be strictly conserved, since there is no
> pathway for transferring it across the boundary.  The
> wrinkle is that some angular momentum will be lost from
> the "spin" coordinates and transferred to the "orbit"
> coordinates.  That is, the two cylinders will pick up
> some nontrivial center-of-mass velocity.

I agree with everything here, right down to the last sentence and
there we part company, unless you inadvertently said what you don't
believe. In this collision, the center of mass of the two cylinders
behaves as if nothing has happened. Certainly the individual
cylinders pick up non-trivial individual motions, but the center of
mass motion will be unaffected by the collision, regardless of its
nature. Tht's conservation of linear momentum, which is also
conserved locally.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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