Re: [Phys-L] The Impulse Momentum Theorem

[Chuck Britton <britton@ncssm.edu>]

We ‘handled’ elastic collisions by doing an air-track lab and ‘observing’ that the two objects approach each other with the sam speed that they separate from each other.

This useful relation combined with Center of Mass calculations makes all the collisions quite doable.


> On Nov 7, 2014, at 12:59 PM, Carl Mungan <mungan@usna.edu> wrote:
>
> By the way, how are elastic collisions handled? Is kinetic energy first introduced and defined at that point in the text? Also, is there any broader discussion at that point of the fact that elastic collisions are so-called because kinetic energy is typically converted into elastic potential energy by the balls, spring-bumper carts, etc during the collision, or is that discussion deferred to the later energy chapter?