# Tagged Questions

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6answers
1k views

### What would happen if Large Hadron Collider would collide electrons?

After some reading about the Large Hadron Collider and it's very impressive instruments to detect and investigate the collision results, there is a remaining question. What would happen if the ...
6answers
5k views

### Newton's cradle

Why, when one releases 2 balls in Newton's cradle, two balls on the opposite side bounce out at approximately the same speed as the 1st pair, rather than one ball at higher speed, or 3 balls at lower ...
6answers
3k views

### Is two cars colliding at 50mph the same as one car colliding into a wall at 100 mph?

I was watching a youtube video the other day where an economist said that he challenged his physics professor on this question back when he was in school. His professor said each scenario is the same, ...
7answers
2k views

### Would it help if you jump inside a free falling elevator?

Imagine you're trapped inside a free falling elevator. Would you decrease your impact impulse by jumping during the fall? When?
2answers
129 views

### What happens in electron-electron collisions?

What are the results of high energy electron electron collisions? Are other particles created?
3answers
501 views

### Can two spaceships go fast enough to pass straight through each other?

Probability of interaction between two particles tends to wane with increasing energy. Technically, the cross section of most interactions falls off with increasing velocity. \sigma(v) \propto ...
2answers
784 views

### Physics of simple collisions

I'm building a physics simulator for a graphics course, and so far I have it implementing gravitational and Coulomb forces. I want to add collisions next, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about ...
4answers
2k views

### The Time That 2 Masses Will Collide Due To Newtonian Gravity

My friend and I have been wracking our heads with this one for the past 3 hours... We have 2 point masses, $m$ and $M$ in a perfect world separated by radius r. Starting from rest, they both begin to ...
3answers
270 views

### the collision of Phobos

Mars has two moons: Phobos and Deimos. Both are irregular and are believed to have been captured from the nearby asteroid belt. Phobos always shows the same face to Mars because of tidal forces ...
1answer
236 views

### What's worse, a full frontal impact or an impact at an offset?

Modern car designs have a crumple zone that absorbs most of the impact in a collision, and a strong "safety cell" in the passenger compartment that protects the passengers. These designs are put to ...
3answers
294 views

### Only Head On collision?

Let us consider two spheres A and B. Suppose they are interacting with each other (In broad sense one can say they are colliding). Let for the time being refer to "striking by coming in contact as ...
2answers
190 views

### Could we use particle colliders as fusion generators?

So I know the basic gist is that fusion power's main issue is sustaining the fusion. I also know that there are two methods. The Torus method and the laser method. The torus magnetically contains ...
1answer
697 views

### Advantages of high-energy heavy-ion collisions over proton-proton collisions?

Some high-energy experiments (RHIC, LHC) use ion-ion collisions instead of proton-proton collisions. Although the total center-of-mass energy is indeed higher than p-p collisions, it might happen that ...
1answer
231 views

### How and why will the Milky way collide with the Andromeda?

Hubble's law says that the universe is expanding.How come the milky way and the andromeda are on a collision course?How will they end up colliding with each other?
1answer
152 views

### What is the result of a classical collision between THREE point particles at the same precise instant?

Classical Mechanics is said to be deterministic, a statement that nearly always is followed by that quote from Laplace, something like If at one time, one knew the positions and velocities of all ...
2answers
103 views

### Best shape to reduce the splash of a droplet?

Our coffee machine catches the last couple of droplets, after your cup is removed on a shape to reduce plash of the coffee droplets. These shapes are placed inside the spill reservoir. The shape ...
3answers
390 views

### Newton's 3rd Law: How can I break things?

If I punch a wooden board hard enough and it breaks in two, has the board still exerted a force of equal magnitude on my fist? When the board breaks in two due to my force, the halves have a ...
1answer
191 views

### Anti-Matter for Neutrons

The anti-particle corresponding to a proton or an electron is a particle with an equal mass, but an opposite charge. So what is the anti-particle corresponding to a neutron (which does not possess a ...
2answers
190 views

### Spinning spheres colliding

In an ideal environment with no friction, in a vacuum, what happens to the velocity of the spin of two spheres spinning in perfect parity at two different velocities when they come into contact?
2answers
795 views

### What causes destruction in car crash?

Suppose a car crashes at a speed $v$ against a wall and comes to a stop. Now if the car crashes at $2v$, does that mean it suffers twice as much destruction, if that can be objectively measured? If ...
2answers
903 views

### Conservation of Momentum/Energy collision Problem

I'm working on a physics problem in preparation for the MCAT and there's this particular problem that's troubling me. I don't know if it's a bad question or if I'm not understanding some sort of ...
1answer
160 views

### What is the function of the top point of a bouncing ball?

A ball is thrown away as parallel to x axis from M(0,h) point with speed V . After each jumping on x axis , it can reach half of previous height as shown in the figure.(Assume that no any air ...
1answer
75 views

### Angular momentum after elastic collision

If two balls collide (elastically) and there is no friction between them, will their angular momentum change after the collision?
1answer
86 views

### Why do we hear a higher pitched sound out of water when we hit two stones against each other in the water?

The observer is outside the water; the stones are underwater (say, 1 m below surface, if that matters). This produces a higher pitched sound for the observer than when both the observer and the stones ...
1answer
368 views

### Simple 2D Vehicle collision physics

I'm trying to create a simplified GTA 2 clone to learn. I'm onto vehicle collisions physics. The basic idea I would say is, To apply force F determined by vehicle A's position and velocity onto point ...
1answer
502 views

### What phrases describe collisions with coefficients of restitution less than zero or greater than one?

The coefficient of restitution describes the elasticity of a collision: 1 = perfectly elastic, kinetic energy is conserved 0 = perfectly inelastic, the objects move at the same speed post impact ...
2answers
671 views

### Is there a 2D generalization of the coefficient of restitution?

The coefficient of restitution characterizes a collision in one dimension by relating the initial and final speeds of the particles involved, $$C_R = -\frac{v_{2f} - v_{1f}}{v_{2i} - v_{1i}}$$ In a ...
0answers
57 views
+50

### How multiple objects in contact are resolved in an inelastic collision, when edge normals don't “line up”

In a case I understand, let's say I have an object A moving at velocity V toward 3 objects in contact B, C, and D: The momentum of A is the mass of A times its velocity. To figure out how the ...
3answers
173 views

### Simple elastic collision

If a particle with mass $m$ collides with a wall at right angles, and the collision is perfectly elastic. The particle hits the wall at $v\ ms^{-1}$. There is no friction or gravity. So the particle ...
3answers
251 views

### Train crash: are these situations alike?

I was just wondering... I believe that if a car travelling 50 miles per hour crashes into a wall, the result should be the same as crashing to another car also travelling 50 miles per hour (but in the ...
3answers
204 views

### What is the strange event in this simulation of a galactic collision?

I was watching this video on YouTube: 2 Spiral Galaxies w/Supermassive Black Holes Collide Around half way, and again almost at the end, the black holes seem to suddenly give off some sort of force ...
2answers
214 views

### Small car colliding with large truck

A small car collides with a large truck. Why do both vehicles experience the same magnitude of force? Wouldn't the large vehicle experience less force than the small one?
1answer
437 views

### Physics needed to build a top down billiards game [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How are these balls reflected after they hit each other? I was wondering what sort of physics equations would I need in order to build a top down billiards game? I tried ...
1answer
64 views

### Is Joule heating only between charged particles?

The Wikipedia page for Joule heating explains "It is now known that Joule heating is caused by interactions between the moving particles that form the current (usually, but not always, electrons) and ...
2answers
109 views

### Elastic collision and spring

Bodies $A$ and $B$ are moving in the same direction in a straight line with a constant velocities on a frictionless surface. The mass and the velocity of $A$ are $2 \text{kg}$ and $10 \text{m/s}$. ...
0answers
88 views

### Elastic collision of rotating bodies

How would you explain in detail elastic collision of two rotating bodies to someone with basic understanding of classical mechanics? I'm writing simple physics engine, but now only simulating ...
1answer
94 views

### Swords, impacts and elasticity for a noob

So I'm a game developer and I'm trying to understand some (extremely) basic facts of impact mechanics. I had read something entitled Dynamics of Hand-Held Impact Weapons, but it was a bit too ...
0answers
251 views

### kinetic energy in collisions

We were hoping you could help us understand collision energy. Vehicle A is driving West at 35mph and weighs 1437kg. Vehicle B is driving North at 35 mph and weighs 1882kg. Vehicle B crashes into the ...
1answer
118 views
+50

### Firing machine question

Suppose we have a firing machine on a frictionless surface at point $x=0$. It fires a bullet of mass $m$ every $T$ seconds. Each bullet has the same constant velocity $v_0$. There's a body of mass ...
9answers
2k views

### Should you really lean into a punch?

There's a conventional wisdom that the best way to minimize the force impact of a punch to the head is to lean into it, rather than away from it. Is it true? If so, why? EDIT: Hard to search for ...
3answers
159 views

### The theory of moon creation when a Mars size planet hit Earth

As we know the predominant theory where does the moon come from is that a Mars size planet hit the earth and took a chunk out of it which eventually materialized into moon. My question is that if a ...
1answer
68 views

### How to get the new direction of 2 disks colliding?

I'm developing a 2D game including collisions between many disks. I would like to know how I can get the angle corresponding to the new direction of each disk. For every disk I have this information ...
1answer
98 views

### Could ions emitted by an ion thruster represent any realistic danger?

As ion thurster designs improve, the ions emitted could have a velocity (relative to the spacecraft) of well above 10^5 or even 10^6 m/s. It the likelihood of any such ions ever hitting a human ...
1answer
150 views

### Momentum And A Car Collision

I am studying an example problem, concerning the very topic mentioned in the title. In this example problem, a car has a head-on collision with the wall; the initial and final velocity are known, as ...
2answers
957 views

### Inelastic collision and conservation of linear and angular momentum

Is it possible for two spheres (a & b) to have an inelastic collision with BOTH the total linear and angular momentum preserved? I'm doing some physics simulation of some spheres attracting each ...
2answers
939 views

### What are all the equations we use to calculate how bounces work?

I mean, what is the object's final displacement, or the function that describes the object's height over time (see [1]) of an object thrown by a height $h$ with a speed of $\vec{v_0}$, a mass of $m$, ...
1answer
35 views

### Finding the coffecient of restitution

A ball moving with velocity $1 \hat i \ ms^{-1}$ and collides with a friction less wall, afetr collision the velocity of ball becomes $1/2 \hat j \ ms^{-1}$. Find the coefficient of restitution ...
1answer
79 views

### Simulation of broken object

I was thinking and the following question came out: how an object that is falling is simulated once it hits the ground? Specifically, I would like to understand how one would be able to simulate the ...
1answer
414 views

### Scattering problem: Converting the two-body lab frame problem into a one-body center-of-mass frame problem

I'm reading the section on scattering in Goldstein's Classical Mechanics, and I have a rather basic question about this. It says that scattering in the laboratory is a two-body problem because of ...
1answer
188 views

### Inelastic Collision and incident angle

This problem is puzzling me. Scenario 1: A certain sphere is having an innelastic collision with a plane of a very large mass. Let the angle between the sphere's velocity and the surface be 90 ...
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