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Is anyone familar with the collision chart in the examkrackers physics book in lecture 4. If so, is it possible for someone to explain the some of the features of the chart? It's really confusing.
EK Physics Collision Chart
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Thread moved. These types of questions belong in the Study Q&A forum.
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All you really need to know is that in elastic collision, kinetic energy is conserved, so you can use 1/2 mv^2 = ke. In inelastic collisions, kinetic energy is not conserved, so you need to use m1v1 = m2v2. The rest of the table goes through partial elastic/inelastic and how kinetic energy compares.
Another thing is that you can not go wrong by using m1v1 = m2v2 because momentum is always conserved. It's simply a longer problem to do because momentum is a vector so you need to account for all the rules of vector addition/subtraction. KE is nice because it's a scalar, thus direction doesn't matter.
Another thing is that you can not go wrong by using m1v1 = m2v2 because momentum is always conserved. It's simply a longer problem to do because momentum is a vector so you need to account for all the rules of vector addition/subtraction. KE is nice because it's a scalar, thus direction doesn't matter.
