[sugar] [OLPC library] [OLPC-Games] Physics -- Newtonian mechanics.. for kids!

Benjamin M. Schwartz bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu
Tue Jul 15 17:51:52 EDT 2008


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Edward Cherlin wrote:
| On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <yoshiki at vpri.org> wrote:
|>  But if you put a circle on
|> the floor (stand still), and make another hit from the side, the
|> momentum is shared by these two circles and both of them move together
|> at the same speed.
|
| That's unphysical, and I would only program that way in a fantasy
| setting. In a head-on elastic collision of two circles of equal mass,
| the hitter should stop dead, transferring all of its energy and
| momentum to the one it hit.

Yoshiki has described the classic "inelastic collision", and Edward has
described the classic "elastic collision".  Both are physical, and both
behaviors, as well as the full range between them, are seen in the real world.

(I don't know why I'm talking about this, though.)

- --Ben
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