Snow Day Blog! Conservation of Momentum

To perfectly demonstrate conservation of momentum, my group decided to utilize exercise balls we had at our house. The medicine ball had a mass of 4 kg and the volleyball had a mass of .281 kg. In our experiment, we had the volleyball rest on the patio 1 meter in front of the medicine ball. While the volleyball was at rest, my sister gave the medicine ball a healthy push and let physics do its thing. Using Vernier Logger Pro, I recorded the video, analyzing it to show the conservation of momentum between this collision

Collisions between objects are governed by laws of momentum and energy. When a collision occurs in an isolated system, the total momentum of the system of objects is conserved. Provided that there are no net external forces acting upon the objects, the momentum of all objects before the collision equals the momentum of all objects after the collision. If there are only two objects involved in the collision, then the momentum lost by one object equals the momentum gained by the other object.

Above is the video showing Bella pushing the 4 kg medicine ball. As you can see in the video, once the medicine ball collides with the volleyball, they both appear to move with the same velocity in the same direction. To see if this is true, we began to plug data points and analyse the video using Logger

We were able to find the velocity of the medicine ball before the collision by finding the line of best fit once all the points were plotted. The velocity was 0.94 m/s

Medicine Ball before the Collision:

V: 0.94 m/s

M: 4 kg

P = (M)(V)

p= (4)(0.94)

momentum = 3.76 kg m/s

Volleyball before the Collision:

V: 0 m/s

M: .281 kg

momentum = 0 kg m/s

Medicine Ball/Volleyball System after collision

V: 0.73 m/s

M: (m1+m2) = 4.281 kg

momentum= 3.125 kg m/s

As important point to remember is that momentum is always conserved while energy is lost through various means.

Calculating the Energy:

Initial KE of Medicine ball = (.5)mv^2 = (.5)(4)(0.94)^2 = 1.767 J

The volleyball had no KE because it was not moving before the collision

Final KE of the system after the collision = (.5)(m1+m2)vf^2 = (.5)(4.281)(0.73)^2 = 1.141 J

Upon final analysis, can evaluated that this collision was in fact an inelastic collision; energy is lost in the collision yet momentum is conserved

As you can see, a small amount of energy is lost during this collision. There was a loss of 0.626 J

Comments

Physics of Sound Dampeners and Active Noise Cancellation

Physics of Sound Dampeners and Active Noise Cancellation Sound dampening foam panels in a recording studio. ANC headphones worn by pilots and/or passengers in consumer aviation aircraft. Acoustic treatment of soundscapes has grown alongside the sound production industry. Whether through absorption panels, diffusors and cloud panels to treat a space or headphones placed directly over the ears of listeners, acoustic treatment comes in many forms. Environments are treated acoustically to absorb excess sound to prevent sound levels from crossing a threshold above which the desired goal cannot be had. Before getting into sound dampening, we must discuss sound. Sound is produced when an object vibrates (a form of oscillation) and temporarily displaces nearby air molecules causing a wave effect as the displaced molecules collide with their neighboring molecules. Sound waves are fluctuations in pressure as the initial displacement of molecules experiences collisions that in ...

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The LHC is the largest machine in the world. It took thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians decades to plan and build, and it continues to operate at the very boundaries of scientific knowledge. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the latest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. Map of LHC (located in Geneva, Switzerland) Thousands of magnets of different varieties and sizes are used to direct the beams around the accelerator. Just prior to collision, another type of magnet is used to "squeeze" the particles closer together to increase the chances of collisions. The particles are so tiny that the task of making them collide is akin to firing two needles 10 kilometres apart with suc...

Physics Behind a Boomerang

A boomerang travels in more or less a circular path. The motion is a combination of various physical principles, for example, aerodynamic lift and circular motion. You have to get these physical principles just right when throwing a boomerang. Think of the two arms of a boomerang as being like the wings of an airplane. The faster they move through the air, the more lift they generate. A boomerang spins as it moves through the air and the combination of spin and forward speed means that some parts of the boomerang are moving faster than others. This means that the boomerang traveling sideways so the net lift is towards the center of the circle that you see the boomerang move on. Another important physical principle is the non-uniform lift. The non-uniform lift generates torque. This causes the gyroscopic effect to come into play. A spinning boomerang is really no different to a spinning gyroscope and the gyroscopic effect makes the boomerang turn around at just the right rate. An...

LSA E Mech 2017-18

Search This Blog