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Collisions in two dimensions

All the examples you have considered so far involve motion in a single dimension, along a track or a road. What happens when objects are free to move and bounce in two or three dimensions?

It turns out that momentum is (in the absence of external forces) conserved in each direction individually. In other words,

or, in more compact notation,

Example of a two-dimensional collision

Use your computers to analyze a video in which two pucks collide on an air table. You might want to read the instructions for marking properties on videos in LoggerPro.

  1. Go to the folder: 
          Student Shares -> University Physics Students -> Team Physics 311
              -> LabPro -> P105COMVideo

  2. Double-click on the 2DCOMempty file. It shows a collision between two pucks of different mass on an air table.
    1. What is the momentum of each puck in each direction (x, y) before the collision?
    2. What is the total momentum in each direction before the collision?
    3. What is the momentum of each puck in each direction (x, y) after the collision?
    4. What is the total momentum in each direction after the collision?
    5. Is the total momentum PERFECTLY conserved in each direction? If not, how different are the values before and after -- 1 percent? 5 percent? 10 percent?
    6. What are the most likely suspects for external forces acting on the pucks? Explain briefly.


    Adapted from Prof. Michael Richmond. Sorry, we could not find this page | RIT CIS - Center for Imaging Science

    Sorry, we could not find this page

    We apologize, but the page you were looking for is not available. Most of our material is available from the menus above.

    Last Modified: 2:01pm 10 Aug 11