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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Why is Momentum Conserved for Colliding Objects?

A brief explanation of why momentum is conserved when multiple objects collide. It is important to distinguish between impulse, or a change of an individual's momentum, and conservation of momentum, which is true for a system that has no external forces acting on the system. When combined with the 3rd law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, impulse and the 3rd law show that the system's impulse is 0...momentum does not change for the system if all we have are the internal forces between the objects.

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