ENGG1001 Study Guide - Inelastic Collision, Elastic Collision, Momentum
Document Summary
Experiment 5: momentum and energy conservation in collisions. The object of this experiment is to use vectors and components to confirm a) the conservation of linear momentum in a collision and b) to determine whether the kinetic energy is conserved in the collision. A quantity which has direction as well as magnitude is called a vector. Examples of vectors are velocity, displacement, force and momentum. When the directions of vectors are not all along the same straight line, then these vectors cannot be added using simple arithmetic. One way of adding two vectors is to make a closed vector triangle using the tail-to-tip method. Then, the arrow drawn from the tail of the first vector to the tip of the second represents the sum or resultant of the two vectors. Vector triangles can be used directly, by drawing to scale and measuring angles with a protractor.
