Skip to main content

Soccer Momentum


     This past snow day, the class was tasked with finding scenarios where conservation of momentum occurred and to show the kinetic energy that was lost. Stumped at first about what I could do to show conservation of momentum, I finally decided to do a collision of two objects with one being at rest. The two objects I chose were soccer balls.  Both of the soccer balls weighed .435 kg. The initial velocity of the first soccer ball was 2.08 m/s.
X-Velocity 















       The second soccer ball weighed the same as the first. After being hit with the first soccer ball the final velocity for the second soccer ball was 1.38 m/s.
X-Velocity 















Equations: 

P=mv=(.435)(2.08)= .904 kg m/s --> First soccer ball 
P=mv=(.435)(1.38)= .625 kg m/s --> Second soccer ball 

First soccer ball: 1/2(.435)(2.08)^2=1/2(.435)(0)^2 --> .941 J lost 
Second soccer ball: 1/2(.435)(0)^2=1/2(.435)(1.38)^2 --> .431 J gained  


     Although the data shows that there is not a conservation of momentum I think this comes about do to human error while inputting data into Logger Pro. The uneven surface may have also lent a hand in this as well and the fact that the two soccer balls did not hit straight on but the angle was too small to calculate. I think that this does show conservation of momentum if the numbers and data could be perfect without human error. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Physics of Black Holes...Or Lack Thereof

Isabella Jacavone To comprehend how the universe works, we must dwell into the most basic building blocks of existence; matter, energy, space, and time. NASA's  Physics of the Cosmos program involves cosmology, astrophysics, and fundamental physics intended to answer questions about the elusiveness of complex concepts such as black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, and gravitational waves. In this blog post, I'd like to elaborate on a subject that is very intriguing  to me; Black holes. And more specifically, what would happen if we got near one. A black hole is anything but a hole, but rather an immense amount of matter compacted into an extremely small area. A black hole is caused when, hypothetically, a star four times more massive than our sun collapses into a sphere no bigger than 600 square km. To put that in perspective, that's about the size of New York City. B lack holes were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which showed that when a...
Post a Comment
Read more

2017 Physics Nobel Prize - Capturing Gravitational Waves

 2017 Physics Nobel Prize - Capturing Gravitational Waves Gravitational Waves Captured by LIGO Who?  Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne - LIGO/VIRGO Collarboration What?  Observation of gravitational waves for the first time using LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Where?  Two locations in the US - Hanford and Livingston. (See figure 1) Figure 1: LIGO in the US When?  14 September 2015 HOW?  The scientists captured gravitational waves by using an interferometer. The LIGO interferometer is a more glamorous interferometer than the original Michelson interferometer. It works through using light waves to measure gravitational interference (i.e. waves). First, one needs to understand the parts of an interferometer. The LIGO interferometer (and most) is shaped as an L. It has two 4 km vacuum tunnel arms with a mirror at each end. At the center of the arms, there is a beam splitter. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Physics of Spiderman

Over this past weekend after I finished working on my homework, I decided to relax and watch a few movies before going asleep. Among the movies I watched was Spider-Man 3 from 2007 and despite the movie flaws I was interested by the scenes that showed Spider Man shooting through the sky with the use of his webs that come out of his wrists. Due to this, I decided to make my blog post about the physics of Spider-Man's slingshot. After doing some research, I discovered just how much information there is on the physics of Spider-Man and how elements of Spider-Man can be used as examples for most topics learned in mechanics. For this investigation, I will not be using the horrible cliche and terrible CGI infested mess that Spider-Man 3 is but instead the all around superior Spider-Man movie of Spider-Man 2 to investigate the physics of Spider-Man's web propelled slingshot.  I want to talk about what happens in terms of physics when Spider-Man launches himself across a dista...
Post a Comment
Read more