3 ms·
You might be confusing conservation of momentum and energy with respect in the context of elastic and inelastic collisions. In a perfectly elastic collision, b
by dumah 3y ago
You might be confusing conservation of momentum and energy with respect in the context of elastic and inelastic collisions.
In a perfectly elastic collision, both momentum and kinetic energy are conserved.
As you say, many real collisions are inelastic to a significant degree. In these cases, momentum is still conserved, but the kinetic energy is converted to another form of energy.
Conservation of linear and angular momentum are fundamental and exact laws of nature resulting from translational and rotational invariance.
- burnished 3y agoNo, I don't think so. If you try to apply conservation of momentum as absolutely as conservation of energy (and that linked physics page states it in simple absolute terms) you can quickly encounter gaps because real objects tend to have less than their theoretically conserved momentum due to permanent deformations and interactions with the environment, or the situation involves friction in any way. Conservation of energy always holds, whereas conservation of momentum has several important caveats and exceptions. Seemed worth pointing that out with an anecdote that amused me. Hmmmm, actually can you explain a little more about 'momentum is still conserved'? In the cases that I'm pointing out momentum as a measurable property seems clearly not conserved, whereas the energy is (just transformed).