Lesson
Two Important Kinetic Quantities
MOMENTUM
= The “QUANTITY OF MOTION” possessed by an object
-It is the product of a body’s mass and its velocity
-It affects the outcome of interactions between two bodies, eg. collisions
-After a head-on collision both bodies move, together, in the direction of motion originally possessed by the object with the greater momentum
–
IMPULSE
When EXTERNAL FORCES act on a body they change its
Momentum. This change depends on the external forces and
the time over which they act.
Impulse = Force x Time = Change in Momentum
So, an object’s momentum can change a lot with small force over long time OR large
force over short time.