Collisions and Conservation Laws

Collisions and conservation laws
S217_1
Page 2 of 72 6th June 2018
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978 1 4730 2530 1 (.kdl)

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Contents
 Introduction
 Learning outcomes
 1 Analysing collisions
 2 Elastic and inelastic collisions
 3 Elastic collisions in one dimension

 3.1 Elastic collisions with a stationary target
 3.2 Elastic collisions in general
 3.3 Four special cases of general elastic

collisions
 4 Elastic collisions in two or three dimensions
 5 Inelastic collisions
 6 Collisions all around us

 6.1 Collisions in space
 6.2 Collisions on the roads
 6.3 Collisions on a small-scale
 7 Relativistic collisions
 7.1 Relativistic momentum
 7.2 Relativistic kinetic energy
 Conclusion
 Keep on learning
 Glossary
 Acknowledgements
Introduction
This free course, Collisions and conservation laws, is about
collisions and how they may be understood using concepts
referred to as the conservation of linear momentum and the
conservation of kinetic energy. We’ll begin by defining some
important quantities that will be used in what follows. A collision is
a brief, but often powerful, interaction between two bodies in close
proximity; we often idealise the situation in physics problems to
consider collisions of pointlike objects travelling along a line or in a
plane. Linear momentum is a physical property of a body in
motion which is equivalent to its mass multiplied by its velocity. It is
a vector quantity so possesses both a magnitude and a direction,
which is the same as the direction of the body’s velocity. The
kinetic energy of a body is a measure of the energy it possesses
by virtue of its motion. It is a scalar quantity, possessing a
magnitude only, which is equivalent to half the body’s mass
multiplied by the square of its speed.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open

University course S217 Physics: from classical to quantum.
Learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
 understand the meaning of all the newly defined

(emboldened) terms introduced
 describe the essential features of elastic and inelastic
collisions, and give examples of each
 use the law of conservation of momentum, and (when
appropriate) the law of conservation of kinetic energy,
to solve a variety of simple collision problems.
1 Analysing collisions
The analysis of collisions is of fundamental importance in physics,
particularly in nuclear and particle physics, and the techniques
used to analyse collisions are well established and widely used.
They are also very firmly rooted in the basic conservation
principles (or ‘conservation laws’ as they are sometimes known),
particularly those of momentum and energy.
2 Elastic and inelastic collisions

When starting to investigate collision problems, we usually
consider situations that either start or end with a single body. The
reason for this self-imposed limitation is that such problems can be
solved by applying momentum conservation alone, namely the
result that the total linear momentum of an isolated system is
constant. The analysis of more general collisions requires the use
of other principles in addition to momentum conservation. To
illustrate this, we now consider a one-dimensional problem in
which two colliding bodies with known masses and , and with
known initial velocities and collide and then separate with final
velocities and . The problem is that of finding the two unknowns
and . Conservation of momentum in the -direction provides only
one equation linking these two unknowns:
(1)
which is insufficient to determine both unknowns.
In the absence of any detailed knowledge about the forces

involved in the collision, the usual source of an additional
relationship between and comes from some consideration of the
translational kinetic energy involved. The precise form of this
additional relationship depends on the nature of the collision.
Collisions may be classified by comparing the total (translational)
kinetic energy of the colliding bodies before and after the collision.
If there is no change in the total kinetic energy, then the collision is
an elastic collision . If the kinetic energy after the collision is
less than that before the collision then the collision is an
inelastic collision . In some situations (e.g. where internal
potential energy is released) the total kinetic energy may even
increase in the collision; in which case the collision is said to be a
superelastic collision .
In the simplest case, when the collision is elastic, the consequent

conservation of kinetic energy means that
(2)
This equation, together with Equation 1 will allow and to be

determined provided the masses and initial velocities have been
specified. We consider this situation in more detail in the next
section.
Real collisions between macroscopic objects are usually inelastic

but some collisions, such as those between steel ball bearings or
between billiard balls, are very nearly elastic. Collisions between
subatomic particles, such as electrons and/or protons, commonly
are elastic. The kinetic energy which is lost in an inelastic collision
appears as energy of a different form (e.g. thermal energy, sound
energy, light energy, etc.), so that the total energy is conserved.
Collisions in which the bodies stick together on collision and move
off together afterwards, are examples of completely inelastic
collisions . In these cases the maximum amount of kinetic
energy, consistent with momentum conservation, is lost.
(Momentum conservation usually implies that the final body or
bodies must be moving and this inevitably implies that there must
be some final kinetic energy; it is the remainder of the initial kinetic
energy, after this final kinetic energy has been subtracted, that is
lost in a completely inelastic collision.)
3 Elastic collisions in one dimension

In this section you will examine the outcomes of various elastic
collisions in one dimension. These are essentially particular cases
of the general elastic collision described by Equation 1 and
Equation 2. Cataloguing one-dimensional elastic collisions may
sound like a rather esoteric pastime, but as you will see, you have
probably witnessed many collisions of this type, and may even
have paid handsomely for the privilege.
3.1 Elastic collisions with a stationary

target
We begin with an example of a one-dimensional elastic collision
between two particles of identical mass, one of which is initially
stationary. Our aim now is to find the final velocity of each particle
after the collision.
Activity 1
A particle of mass moves along the -axis with velocity and collides
elastically with an identical particle at rest. What are the velocities
of the two particles after the collision?
View answer - Activity 1
The result of Example 1 will be familiar to anyone who has seen

the head-on collision of two bowls on a bowling green. The moving
one stops, and the one that was initially stationary moves off with
the original velocity of the first. In effect, the bowls exchange
velocities.
Activity 2
Predict qualitatively (i.e. without calculation) what would happen
when a body of mass collides with another body of mass that is
initially at rest if:
(a) (The symbol should be read as ‘is very much greater than’.)
View answer - Untitled part
(b) .
3.2 Elastic collisions in general

We now consider the general one-dimensional elastic collision
between particles of mass and which move with initial velocities
and before the collision and final velocities and after the collision.
As stated earlier, the outcome of collisions of this kind is
determined by Equation 1 and Equation 2. We shall not write down
the details (though you might like to work them out for yourself) but
by arguments similar to those used in Example 1, the following
result can be obtained.
If the initial velocity of particle relative to particle is taken to be
and if the final velocity of particle relative to particle is taken to be
then, as a result of an elastic collision
In other words:
In a one-dimensional elastic collision between two particles the

relative velocity of approach is the negative of the relative velocity
of separation
(7)
Combining this result (which incorporates the conservation of

kinetic energy) with Equation 1 (which expresses conservation of
momentum), leads to the following expressions for the final
velocities:
(8)
(9)
In the next two exercises you can use Equations 8 and 9.

However, these equations are complicated so you are not
expected to memorise them. You should be able to solve this
type of question starting from the equations of conservation of
momentum (Equation 1) and kinetic energy (Equation 2).
Activity 3
A neutron of mass rebounds elastically in a head-on collision with
a gold nucleus of mass that is initially at rest. What fraction of the
neutron’s initial kinetic energy is transferred to the recoiling gold
nucleus? Repeat this calculation when the target is a carbon
nucleus at rest and of mass .
Activity 4
A tennis player returns a service in the direction of the server. The
ball of mass arrives at the racket of mass with a speed of and the
racket is travelling at at impact. Calculate the velocity of the
returning ball, assuming elastic conditions.
3.3 Four special cases of general

elastic collisions
It is interesting to examine these results for and in a few special
cases, including some that have been mentioned earlier. The
cases are illustrated in Animation 1, and have many familiar
sporting applications.
Interactive content is not available in this format.
Animation 1 Animation showing body with mass and initial speed moving in
one dimension and colliding with body with mass and speed initially moving in
the opposite direction. The controls in the animation allow you to change the
values of , , and . Press the play button to see what happens during the
elastic collision.
View description - Animation 1 Animation showing body 1

1 with mass m_1 m sub 1 and initial speed ...
Activity 5
Using Animation 1, explore what happens in the cases listed below
and find, using Equation 8 and Equation 9, expressions for and :
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
The results for the four special cases in the exercises accord with
common experience. Let’s summarise them:
1. : the particles simply exchange velocities. We saw this
result earlier in this section; it is a familiar occurrence
in bowls and snooker.
2. ; : the low-mass particle moves off with a velocity of
twice that of the high-mass particle. Tennis players
will be familiar with this case from serving.
3. ; : the low-mass particle rebounds with almost

unchanged speed while the high-mass particle
remains essentially at rest. Golfers whose ball hits a
tree will recognise this situation.
4. ; : the low-mass particle bounces back with three

times the initial speed, while the high-mass particle
continues essentially unaffected by the collision. This
case will be recognised by a batsman playing cricket
or by a tennis player returning a serve.
The results quoted above under points 2, 3 and 4 give an upper

limit to the speed that can be imparted to a ball hit by a club, bat or
racket.
Activity 6
The ‘Newton’s cradle’ executive toy shown below performs
repeated collisions between one ball and a row of four identical
balls. You may assume the collisions are perfectly elastic.
Figure 1 ‘Newton’s cradle’ executive toy: a row of four balls suspended from a
frame collide in sequence
(a) Explain how this toy fits into the framework of four special
cases enumerated above.
(b) Gravitational potential energy is energy possessed by an

object by virtue of its height – objects further from the surface of
the Earth will have a greater gravitational potential energy. As an
object falls, its gravitational potential energy will be converted into
kinetic energy, and as an object rises, its kinetic energy will be
converted into gravitational potential energy. What role does the
exchange of gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy play
in the dynamics of the first and fifth balls?
4 Elastic collisions in two or three

dimensions
The laws of conservation of momentum and energy that we used
to analyse elastic collisions in one dimension are also used to
analyse elastic collisions in two or three dimensions. We simply
treat the motions in each dimension as independent, and apply
conservation of momentum separately along each Cartesian
coordinate axis. Kinetic energy conservation continues to provide
one additional equation relating the squares of the particle speeds.
Since we have been careful to use vector notation throughout, this
extension to two or three dimensions is easily made.
Consider the elastic collision of two identical bodies of mass , one

at rest and the other approaching with velocity . The particles are
no longer confined to move in one dimension, so our -component
equation (Equation 1), embodying conservation of momentum,
becomes a full vector equation:
The law of conservation of energy (Equation 2) does not change,

so
These can be simplified to:
(10)
and
(11)
These equations are most easily interpreted by a diagram. Figure

2 shows how the three vectors , and are related to one another.
Equation 10 tells us that all three velocity vectors must lie in
a single plane , and that they must form a closed triangle.
Equation 11 tells us that the triangle must be a right-angled
triangle, since its sides obey Pythagoras’ theorem. The
implication of this is striking, it means that the angle between and
must be .
Figure 2 (a) Elastic collision between particles of equal mass, with one at rest;
(b) the corresponding vector triangle.
Following the elastic collision of two identical particles, one of

which is initially at rest, the final velocities of the two particles will
be at right-angles.
This is a simplifying feature of equal-mass collisions in two or three
dimensions, analogous to the simple result of the exchange of
velocities, which we found in one dimension.
You may have noticed that this result does not tell us exactly
where the bodies go after the collision. Any pair of final velocities
which can be represented by Figure 2 will be equally satisfactory,
and there are an infinite number of these. The reason for this is
that we have said nothing about the shape or size of the bodies, or
just how they collide. We usually need to have additional
information of this kind if we are to determine unique final
velocities in such cases. Figure 3 shows the outcome of a
particular collision in which spherical bodies make contact at a
specific point. The location of this point is the sort of additional
information required to determine unique values for and .
Figure 3 When ball strikes ball , the reaction forces at the contact point ensure
that ball is propelled away along the line of centres, as in snooker.
Activity 7
For the case illustrated in Figure 2 (two bodies of equal mass, one
of which is initially at rest), if the moving body has an initial speed
of , and is deflected through in the collision, find the magnitudes
and directions of the velocities and .
Activity 8
In the same situation (Figure 2), if, instead of the outcome
specified in Activity 7, the speed of the moving body is reduced
from to by the collision, find the final velocities.
When the masses of the two colliding particles are unequal the
algebraic manipulations required to solve elastic collision problems
become rather complicated, but no new physics is involved in the
solution so we will not pursue such problems here.
5 Inelastic collisions
We now extend our discussion to include inelastic cases, where
the total kinetic energy changes during the one-dimensional
collision.
First we consider the case where the two particles stick together
on impact; this is an example of a completely inelastic collision,
which occurs with the maximum loss of kinetic energy consistent
with conservation of momentum. As a simple example, suppose
we have two bodies of equal mass, with one initially at rest. If the
initial velocity of the other is and the initial momentum is , the final
momentum must be the same so, since the mass has been
doubled, the final velocity is and the final kinetic energy is
therefore
Since the initial kinetic energy was twice as large as this, it follows
that half the original kinetic energy has been lost (mainly as
thermal energy), during the collision.
For the more general case where the colliding masses are
unequal, but they stick together at collision, we still have and so
momentum conservation implies that
and provides a full solution of the problem (a value for ), without

recourse to energy.
To complete the picture, let us mention the general case where two
particles collide but where the transfer of kinetic energy into other
forms is less than that for the completely inelastic case. This
problem has no general solution without more information, such as
the fraction of kinetic energy converted. Such problems have
solutions which lie between those for the two extremes of elastic
and completely inelastic collisions but they must be tackled on an
individual basis, using the general principles of conservation of
momentum and energy.
You will see that in all these calculations we have not needed to
invoke the rather complicated forces involved in the interaction of
the two particles, but rather have been able to solve the problems
using only the principles of conservation of momentum and energy.
This is a great simplification and illustrates the power of using
conservation principles whenever possible.
6 Collisions all around us

Collisions are occurring around us all the time and on all size
scales, from the very largest to the very smallest. In the following
sections, you will listen to and watch various audios and videos
which describe how these collisions may be understood.
6.1 Collisions in space

Collisions in space are a frequent occurrence. In the following
audio, we describe how such collisions may be understood in
terms of the concepts introduced in this course.
Figure 5 An artist’s impression of a large asteroid impacting on the Earth

causing global extinction of a number of species of plants and animals.
Audio content is not available in this format.
Audio 1 Collisions in space
View transcript - Audio 1 Collisions in space
6.2 Collisions on the roads
The growing number of cars on today’s roads makes it increasingly
likely that each driver will be involved in at least one collision
during their lifetime, making this a matter of personal interest for all
of us (Video 1).
Video content is not available in this format.
Video 1 The physics of colliding cars.
View transcript - Video 1 The physics of colliding cars.
6.3 Collisions on a small-scale

In case you think it’s a long time since you personally were
involved in a collision, you should be aware that even the air that
you breathe has its properties regulated by the innumerable
collisions that occur every second between the molecules in the
air. The air pressure that helps to keep your lungs inflated and
enables you to breathe is a result of the rate at which momentum
is transferred between the molecules in the air and lung tissue.
Collisions continue to be of importance in nuclear physics, but they

are even more significant in subnuclear physics. Collision
experiments, usually at very high energies, are almost
synonymous with the experimental investigation of elementary
particles such as protons, and their supposedly fundamental
constituents, the quarks and gluons. These investigations are
carried out with the aid of purpose-built particle accelerators, such
as the ones at The European Centre for Particle Physics (CERN)
(Video 2) or Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA.
Sophisticated detectors allow the energies and momenta of the
emerging particles to be measured, aiding the identification of the
particles and the analysis of their behaviour. The results give an
indication of the underlying structure of the colliding particles, and
have revealed the existence of forms of matter that would still be
unknown and possibly even unsuspected were it not for collision
experiments. The most recent of these results is the observation of
a particle consistent with the Higgs boson announced by CERN in
July 2012.
Video content is not available in this format.
Video 2 A look inside CERN.
View transcript - Video 2 A look inside CERN.
7 Relativistic collisions
The high-energy collision experiments carried out at CERN,
Brookhaven National Laboratory and other such facilities, involve
particles that travel at speeds close to that of light. Under such
circumstances the definitions of momentum and translational
kinetic energy, that play such an important role in Newtonian
mechanics, reveal certain shortcomings. It is still the case that
translational kinetic energy is conserved in an elastic collision and
that the momentum of an isolated system is always conserved,
but the Newtonian expressions
are now recognised as approximations, valid only at low speeds

(i.e. at speeds much less than the speed of light), to more
complicated expressions that work at any speed, up to the speed
of light. The breakthrough that led to this realisation was the
development of Einstein’s special theory of relativity in 1905. Here
we shall quote a few of its well-established results concerning
momentum and energy.
7.1 Relativistic momentum

According to Einstein’s theory the relativistic momentum of
a particle with mass and velocity is given by
(12)
where is the speed of the particle and is the speed of light in a
vacuum. The speed of light in a vacuum, , plays an important role
throughout special relativity. Among other things it represents an
upper limit to the speed of any particle.
Equation 12 implies that the momentum of a particle increases

more rapidly with increasing speed than the Newtonian relation ()
predicts. This is shown in Figure 6, where the behaviour of the
Newtonian and relativistic definitions of momentum magnitude are
compared. You can see the good agreement at low speed, but you
can also see the increasing discrepancy as the speed increases.
Note that the relativistic definition does not extend beyond . This
reflects the fact that in special relativity it is impossible to
accelerate a particle with mass to the speed of light, as you will
soon see.
Figure 6 The magnitude of the momentum of a particle of mass plotted
against the particle’s speed according to Newtonian mechanics and special
relativity. The Newtonian relation closely approximates that of relativity for
values of that are small compared with the speed of light, .
7.2 Relativistic kinetic energy

One of the most celebrated aspects of special relativity is
Einstein’s discovery of mass energy , the energy that a particle
has by virtue of its mass. The mass energy of a particle of mass
(sometimes called the rest mass in this context) is given by
(13)
The mass energy is also known as rest energy.
The reason for mentioning this relation here is that it plays a part in
determining the kinetic energy of a particle. How is this? Well,
according to special relativity the total energy (including the mass
energy) of a particle of mass travelling with speed is
(14)
Since this quantity is the sum of the translational kinetic energy

and the mass energy of the particle it follows that, according to the
theory of relativity, the translational kinetic energy of a particle of
mass and speed is
(15)
Unlikely as it may seem, this expression actually agrees very
closely with the Newtonian expression for translational kinetic
energy when is small compared with . The relativistic and
Newtonian definitions of translational kinetic energy are compared
in Figure 7. The figure also indicates one reason why it is
impossible to accelerate a particle to the speed of light; doing so
would require the transfer of an unlimited amount of energy to the
particle.
Figure 7 The translational kinetic energy of a particle of mass plotted against

the particle’s speed according to Newtonian physics and special relativity. The
Newtonian relation closely approximates that of relativity for values of that are
small compared with the speed of light, .
In analysing high-speed relativistic collisions , it is the

relativistic expressions for momentum and energy that must be
used rather than their Newtonian counterparts. In an elastic
collision, all of the quantities we have just defined will be
conserved:
 momentum
 mass energy
 kinetic energy
 total energy.
However, many high-energy collisions are actually inelastic, and in

a high-energy inelastic collision the only quantities that are certain
to be conserved are the momentum and total energy. In a general
inelastic collision, neither kinetic energy nor mass energy is
necessarily conserved. This means that in an inelastic collision it is
quite possible for particles to be created or destroyed, thereby
increasing or decreasing the mass energy. However, the
conservation of total energy means that any change in mass
energy must be accompanied by a compensating change in the
kinetic energy. Thus particles may be created, but only at the
expense of kinetic energy.
The need for kinetic energy in order to create particles explains

why advances in particle physics often require the construction of
powerful new particle accelerators. Increasing the kinetic energy of
the colliding particles increases the mass of the particles that may
be created in the collision and thus opens up the possibility of
creating previously undiscovered forms of matter. Figure 8 shows
the tracks of particles created in one such ‘ultra-relativistic’
collision.
Figure 8 Tracks of particles coming from an ‘ultra-relativistic’ inelastic collision

at CERN.
This section has made much use of the phrase ‘high-speed

collision’. The meaning of the term ‘high speed’ obviously depends
on context. However, if we simply take it to refer to speeds that are
sufficiently high that there is a clear discrepancy between the
Newtonian and relativistic values of kinetic energy and momentum,
then we can say that high speed means greater than about . This
may not be obvious from the curves in Figure 6 and Figure 7
because of the scale that has been used to draw them, but is the
threshold used by physicists.
Conclusion
Having completed this free course, Collisions and conservation
laws, you should now be able to state the law of conservation of
momentum and describe the essential features of elastic and
inelastic collisions. You should also be able to use the law of
conservation of momentum and (when appropriate) the law of
conservation of kinetic energy to solve a variety of simple collision
problems. In addition, you should recognise the expressions for
momentum and energy that arise in special relativity and explain
their implications for the creation of new particles in high-speed
inelastic collisions at CERN.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open

University course S217 Physics: from classical to quantum .
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Glossary
collision
A brief interaction between two or more particles or bodies in close proximity.
completely inelastic collision
A collision in which the colliding bodies stick together, resulting in the
maximum loss of kinetic energy consistent with conservation of
momentum.
conservation of kinetic energy
The principle that the total kinetic energy of any isolated system is constant.
conservation of linear momentum
The principle that the total linear momentum of any isolated system is
constant.
elastic collision
A collision in which kinetic energy is conserved.
inelastic collision
A collision in which kinetic energy is not conserved.
internal force
In the context of a given system, an internal force is a force that acts within
the system and which has a reaction that also acts within the system.
isolated system
A system which cannot exchange matter or energy with its
environment. In the context of mechanics, an isolated system is one that
is subject only to internal forces.
kinetic energy
The energy that a body possesses by virtue of its motion.
law of conservation of linear momentum
See conservation of linear momentum.
linear momentum
The momentum associated with the translational motion of a body.
For a particle of mass travelling with velocity , the linear momentum is .
mass energy
The energy that a body possesses by virtue of its mass, as given by , where
is the speed of light in a vacuum. The existence of mass energy is one of the
many implications of the special theory of relativity. The mass energy
of a free particle is the difference between its (total) relativistic energy
and its relativistic translational kinetic energy. Mass energy is also
known as rest energy.
momentum
A vector quantity, useful in various situations as a measure of a body's
tendency to continue in its existing state of rotational or translational
motion.
principle of conservation of linear momentum
See conservation of linear momentum.
relativistic collision
A collision involving sufficiently high speeds that its analysis requires the use
of the relativistic relations for momentum and energy rather than their
Newtonian counterparts. Relativistic collisions are often inelastic and are
characterised by the creation of new particles and an associated increase in
mass energy (at the expense of kinetic energy).
relativistic energy
According to the theory of special relativity the total energy (including the
mass energy) of a particle of mass travelling with speed is
relativistic kinetic energy
According to the theory of special relativity, the translational kinetic energy of
a particle of mass and speed is equal to its total relativistic energy minus its
mass energy
relativistic momentum
The momentum of a body according to the special theory of
relativity. For a particle of (rest) mass , travelling with velocity , the
relativistic momentum is At speeds which are small compared with the speed
of light, , this reduces to the Newtonian expression .
superelastic collision
A collision in which the kinetic energy increases, typically as a result of
the release of potential energy.
system
That part of the Universe which is the subject of an investigation.
Acknowledgements
This free course was written by Professor Andrew Norton.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms
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Licence .
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under

licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful
acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission
to reproduce material in this free course:
Images
Course image: D. M. Eigler, IBM Research Division.
Figure 1: DemonDeLuxe (Dominique Toussaint). This file is

licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
Licence
Figure 5: gl0ck33 / 123RF
Figure 8: courtesy © CERN
Audio-visual
Animation 1: © The Open University
Audio 1: © The Open University
Video 1: (6.2): from: Mother of All Collisions (2000) by The BBC for
The Open University © The Open University and its licensors
Video 2: (6.3): from: Big Bang Night, The Big Bang Machine, BBC4
3 September 2000 © The BBC
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Activity 1
Answer
Let the final velocities be and . Conservation of momentum along
the -axis gives
(3)
and conservation of kinetic energy for this elastic collision gives
(4)
By eliminating common factors, Equation 3 can be simplified to

give
(5)
and Equation 4 can be treated similarly to give
(6)
Rearranging Equation 6 gives
the right-hand side of which may be rewritten using the general

identity , thus
Dividing both sides of this last equation by ,
and using Equation 5 to simplify the resulting right-hand side gives
Comparing this expression for with that in Equation 5 shows that
Back to Session 3 Activity 1
Activity 2
Untitled part
Answer
Experience should tell you that a high-mass projectile fired at a
low-mass target would be essentially unaffected by the collision.
Back to Session 3 Part 2
Activity 2
Untitled part
Answer
A low-mass projectile fired at a massive target would bounce back
with unchanged speed.
Activity 3
Answer
The initial kinetic energy is
and the final kinetic energy is
therefore the loss in energy is
and the fractional loss is
With in Equation 8,
we can write the fractional loss as
For gold
For carbon
So, a low-mass nucleus is much more effective than a more

massive nucleus when it comes to slowing down fast neutrons by
elastic collisions. It is because of this fact that carbon is used in a
nuclear reactor for just this purpose.
Activity 4
Answer
We designate the ball as particle and the racket as particle , with
the ball initially travelling along the positive -direction. From
Equation 8
so
i.e.
Activity 5
Untitled part
Answer
With the masses equal, we can see that if particle is moving slowly
and approaching particle which is moving quickly, then after the
collision, the particles rebound but now particle is moving quickly
and particle is moving slowly. In fact, Equation 8 and Equation 9
give and so the velocities of the particles are simply exchanged.
Activity 5
Untitled part
Answer
The motion of the high-mass particle is virtually unchanged by the
collision. If is very small compared with , then and . With , Equation
8 and Equation 9 then give and . The low-mass particle moves off
with a velocity of twice that of the high-mass particle.
Activity 5
Untitled part
Answer
The low-mass particle rebounds with almost unchanged speed
while the high-mass particle remains essentially at rest. If is very
small compared with (which is stationary), then Equation 8 and
Equation 9 lead to and .
Activity 5
Untitled part
Answer
The low-mass particle bounces back with higher speed, while the
high-mass particle continues essentially unaffected by the collision.
If is negligible compared with , and the two bodies approach head-
on with equal speeds then Equation 8 and Equation 9 lead to and .
Activity 6
Untitled part
Answer
While at first glance, we have the situation ; , most closely
corresponding to point 3 above, the behaviour of the toy is not as
predicted by point 3. In fact, the toy executes a rapid series of four
repeated collisions corresponding to point 1 above: with the case .
The second ball moves instantaneously with velocity , colliding
immediately with the third ball, which moves instantaneously with
velocity , and so on until the fifth ball carries the momentum away
with velocity .
Activity 6
Untitled part
Answer
After the four collisions, the fifth ball moves in a pendulum-like
trajectory until its kinetic energy is converted to gravitational
potential energy. It comes instantaneously to rest, then moves
back to collide with the fourth ball with velocity (neglecting air
resistance encountered during the motion). The same thing
happens when the first ball is set in motion by the second ball, it
begins to move as a pendulum with velocity . This kinetic energy is
again converted to gravitational energy until the first ball comes
instantaneously to rest, then moves back to collide with the second
ball with velocity , repeating the cycle.
Activity 7
Answer
We draw a vector triangle like the one shown in Figure 2b
Figure 4 Vector triangle
We can now see that
and is at the given angle of to the -axis; has a magnitude
and must be at to the -axis so that the two angles add up to .
Activity 8
Answer
Using the triangle in Figure 2 Pythagoras’ theorem tells us that , so
so that .
Now is at an angle and at an angle to the -axis. You will observe

that the two angles add up to , as they should.
Animation 1 Animation showing

body 1 1 with mass m_1 m sub 1
and initial speed u_1 u sub 1
moving in one dimension and
colliding with body 2 2 with mass
m_2 m sub 2 and speed u_2 u sub
2 initially moving in the opposite
direction. The controls in the
animation allow you to change the
values of m_1 m sub 1 , m_2 m
sub 2 , u_1 u sub 1 and u_2 u sub
2 . Press the play button to see
what happens during the elastic
collision.
Description
Initially body is moving along a straight line from left to right
towards body moving in the opposite direction. Once the bodies
collide, several things can happen depending on the values of ,
and : both bodies may move towards the right, body may start to
move backwards, with body either stationary or moving towards
the right, or both bodies may stand still.
Back to Session 3 MediaContent 1
Audio 1 Collisions in space

Transcript
On an astronomical scale, entire galaxies can collide and merge.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, in which the Sun is just one of
about stars, has absorbed a number of small companion galaxies.
One such ‘victim’, a dwarf galaxy in Sagittarius, was discovered in
the late 1990s.
A large body of scientific evidence now exists that supports the

idea that a major asteroid or comet impact occurred in the
Caribbean region at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary
periods in Earth’s geological history (about 65 million years ago).
Such an impact is suspected of being responsible for the mass
extinction of many species of plants and animals, including the
large dinosaurs. The correctness of this hypothesis is still not
certain, but the possibility of such a collision is very real; it is
becoming increasingly clear that the Earth orbits the Sun in a sort
of cosmic shooting gallery. The collision of the fragments of comet
Shoemaker–Levy 9 with the planet Jupiter in 1994 was just one of
the many side-shows in this gallery. The most dangerous asteroids
and comets, those capable of causing major regional or global
disasters, are extremely rare, impacting on the Earth perhaps once
every 250 000 years or so. Nevertheless, a great deal of media
and scientific attention has been focused on strategies of defence.
These include the use of nuclear devices and high-speed collisions
to deflect or fragment such an object heading for Earth.
Calculations using the principles we have discussed in this course
have shown that high-speed inelastic collisions, at or so, of wide
projectiles with a kilometre-wide asteroid would only change the
speed of the main body of the asteroid by about . Such collisions
would have to take place years before impact in order for enough
deflection to take place to avert catastrophe.
Video 1 The physics of colliding

cars.
Transcript
ROBERT LLEWELLYN: All collisions obey the rules of nature. If
police detectives know these laws, they can piece together what
happened in a crash from the bits that are left. It’s the same
whether it’s cars or atoms colliding. While the subatomic world may
be strange and complex, scientists can always rely on some
fundamental laws of collisions. Laws that apply from the
mysterious atom to the world of the all too familiar.
ADRIAN HOBBS: More people are killed in road accidents than

have been killed in all the wars and other types of accidents put
together. We’re having in excess of one road accident per second
worldwide. In this country, we have something like three and a half
thousand people killed every year. It’s absolutely imperative that, in
trying to understand what’s going on, that we do understand the
physics. Just saying, well, I have a car, and it crushes the front,
and not understanding why doesn’t tell me how I change things.
So it is fundamental to all our work that we have to understand the
laws of physics.
JON NEADES: Accident investigation is looking at the physical
evidence that’s been left at the scene of a collision and
establishing what has actually happened in the collision itself.
Okay, let’s have a look at the marks that we’ve got.
I’m Jon Neades, and I’m an ex-police officer. And now I teach
accident investigation to police officers. You can see the black
marks that have been produced as the tyre has run over the
surface of the road. What that black mark is, certainly over this
portion, a mark...
What is actually happening in the collision, what’s happened to the

various objects, why we have marks on the road surface, why a
vehicle behaves in a particular way. And it’s all based on the laws
of physics.
ROBERT LLEWELLYN: In a skid, you may be out of control. But

the laws of physics aren’t. Behind the chaos and confusion of a
crash is the order and certainty of nature. If you understand these
rules, you can work backwards and discover just how the metal got
mangled.
It’s over a hundred years since the first person was killed in a road
accident in Britain. This car may look lovely but it’s also deadly.
Both car and driver would be written off in a crash.
ADRIAN HOBBS: I think that if we look at what’s happened in the
whole development of the cars, we can say that by understanding
how energy is absorbed, this has enabled us to move forward so
that, in the unhappy event that you have an accident, then there’s
a much greater chance that you’ll be protected in that accident.
And without our understanding of physics, we would never have
got to that point.
If we’re looking at energy, we have energy. We have kinetic energy

if anything’s moving. Of course, when two cars crash into each
other, they have a lot of kinetic energy. And we have to absorb that
kinetic energy in the front structure of the car. If we don’t absorb it
in the front structure of the car, it will have to be absorbed
somewhere. And it’ll be absorbed by collapse of the passenger
compartment. So we want to have the softest front structure that
you can have but would absorb sufficient impact energy.
If you could design a car that had its front end, that would be like a
spring, so that when cars collided, they crushed and then
recovered. The problem there is the cars would then bounce back.
And so the change in velocity on the cars would be much greater.
There’s no point in stopping somebody and then saying, I’m now
going to accelerate you backwards and increase your injuries.
Now, you can’t do that perfectly. Cars will recover. But the ideal is
cars which collapse and stay collapsed.
ROBERT LLEWELLYN: So car designers have a stark choice. In a
crash, the energy either deforms the car or the people. Energy
always has to go somewhere. It can’t just disappear. That’s what
crumple zones are about. They allow the energy to go into bending
metal. The front of the car crumples so the people don’t.
The total amount of energy in the Universe always remains the

same. It’s conserved. Nature’s law on the conservation of energy is
never broken. Scientists rely on it absolutely. But energy isn’t the
only thing that obeys the law of conservation.
Motion is the key to understanding crashes. If my toy car were

travelling at the same velocity as a real car, the real car would do a
lot more damage. That’s because it’s got more momentum. Now
momentum is the velocity of a vehicle multiplied by its mass. If two
vehicles are travelling at the same velocity, the one with more
mass has more momentum.
ADRIAN HOBBS: When we consider two cars hitting each other,

then the first thing we have to consider is the momentum. So if you
have one car that is twice the mass of the other car, then the
momentum that that car has is its mass times its velocity. Both the
cars are going at the same velocity. Then one car has twice as
much momentum as the other car.
If you were to imagine something like a Mini hitting a truck - a very

extreme example - you can see the very simple situation is if a
truck is coming along at 30 miles an hour into a Mini at 30 miles an
hour, the Mini will basically be going back at nearly 30 miles an
hour. So it’s had a change in velocity of something like 60 miles an
hour. And the truck will be going along still at almost 30 miles an
hour. So it’s had a velocity change of virtually nothing.
JON NEADES: Well, momentum is one of those fundamental

features that’s always conserved in every collision. The momentum
is going to remain constant in a closed system. And we use that to
establish, with two vehicles colliding, whatever momentum they
had before the collision, exactly the same amount of momentum
will come out of the collision at the other end. In fact, we use it in
reverse. We know what happened after the accident, and we use
that to predict what has happened and what the speeds of the
vehicles are before the accident.
ROBERT LLEWELLYN: Just like energy, momentum is conserved.

It stays the same. In a collision, momentum has to go somewhere.
You can depend on that.
The police certainly do, as they attempt to work out the cause of
the accident, and who’s to blame from the debris that’s left.
Whether it’s on tarmac or green baize, behind every collision are
the laws of conservation of momentum and energy. It’s these rules
that let us predict how things behave during an impact.
Video 2 A look inside CERN.

Transcript
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): Every civilisation has its own creation
story. The ancient Chinese, Indian mystics and Christian
theologians all place a divine creator at the heart of their creation
stories. Science, too, has an elaborate story that describes the
Universe’s genesis. It tells us how the fundamental constituents of
the cosmos took on their form.
The difference with this story is that we can test it. We can find out
if it’s true by tearing matter apart and looking at the pieces. All you
need is a machine powerful enough to restage the first moments
after creation.
In the beginning, there was nothing. No space, no time, just

endless nothing. Then, 13.7 billion years ago, from nothing... came
everything. The Universe exploded into existence. From that
fireball of energy emerged the simplest building blocks of matter.
Finding experimental evidence of these fundamental entities has
become the holy grail of physics.
PROFESSOR ALVARO DE RUJULA: Well, the Universe is an

object that is not stable. It is expanding and cooling. It’s doing
things. And it was therefore different in the past and it will be
different in the future. It has a history. It has a life. It has an
evolution.
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): As the early Universe grew, its

mysterious primeval constituents transformed themselves into
atoms, then molecules and, eventually, stars and planets. Now,
billions of years on from the big bang, the Universe is so complex
that all traces of the enigmatic building blocks are lost.
PROFESSOR ALVARO DE RUJULA: Understanding the evolution

of the Universe requires understanding what it is made of. As it
turns out, most of that of which the Universe is made are things
that we do not understand at all.
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): But we hope that the LHC is about to

bridge this profound gap in our knowledge, by peering further back
in time than ever before. The LHC is truly colossal. Its accelerator
ring is 27 kilometres long - big enough to encircle a small city. And
around it, we’ve built four enormous experiments that will
investigate the big bang in exquisite new detail.
BRIAN COX: This is my experiment, the experiment that I work on

- ATLAS. And what you can see is just the surface buildings. The
experiment is actually a hundred metres below the ground, which
is where the LHC is. And, basically, this is just a building that
covers cranes, where we winch everything down.
And this is pretty much the last time that not only TV crews but me
and the people that built it will be able to go down. Because, once
it starts operating, the whole area becomes a radiation area. It
becomes mildly radioactive.
You’ve always got to be worried when you see those things. One
of the most expensive bits, if not the most expensive, bit of ATLAS
actually, was digging the cavern. We even have iris scanners. So,
a little bit of science fiction.
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): It’s down here, in caverns brimming

with the latest technology, that the big bangs will be made.
BRIAN COX: We just take little bits of matter, little bits of this stuff,
and accelerate them to as close to the speed of light as we can
get, and then smash them together, right in the middle of that
detector, to re-create the conditions that were present back at the
beginning of time.
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): The bits of matter we’re going to fire

around the LHC are called protons. They come from a family of
particles that give the collider its name - the hadrons.
BRIAN COX: Protons are going to fly around here, so close to the
speed of light that they go round this 27-kilometre tunnel 11 000
times a second.
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): The ring has two barrels that will
shoot beams of protons around in opposite directions. When they
collide, they’ll have the energy equivalent to an aircraft carrier
steaming at 30 knots. All this energy will be focused into a space
just a fraction of the width of a human hair. The resulting explosion
will be so intense that no one’s quite sure what will happen.
BRIAN COX: This machine really is a leap into the unknown. I

mean, it’s often said with scientific experiments, but I think, in this
case, it’s absolutely right. We’re a step - something like a factor of
ten in energy. So it’s a huge jump up in energy. It’s a huge jump up
in the number of times we can smash particles together per
second. It collides protons together so often that your chances of
seeing something incredibly interesting and profound are
increased way beyond anything that we’ve found before. And I can
think of no better place to be, actually, at the moment. This is
exciting.
BRIAN COX (VOICEOVER): The dream of understanding the

building blocks from which the Universe is constructed has
inspired the greatest minds for over two millennia.

Collisions and Conservation Laws

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About this free course

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 2 Elastic and inelastic collisions

 3 Elastic collisions in one dimension

 3.2 Elastic collisions in general

 3.3 Four special cases of general elastic

 4 Elastic collisions in two or three dimensions

 6 Collisions all around us

 6.2 Collisions on the roads

 6.3 Collisions on a small-scale

 7.2 Relativistic kinetic energy

Page 7 of 72 6th June 2018

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open

Page 8 of 72 6th June 2018

 understand the meaning of all the newly defined

Page 9 of 72 6th June 2018

Page 10 of 72 6th June 2018

2 Elastic and inelastic collisions

which is insufficient to determine both unknowns.

In the absence of any detailed knowledge about the forces

Page 11 of 72 6th June 2018

In the simplest case, when the collision is elastic, the consequent

This equation, together with Equation 1 will allow and to be

Real collisions between macroscopic objects are usually inelastic

Page 13 of 72 6th June 2018

3 Elastic collisions in one dimension

3.1 Elastic collisions with a stationary

View answer - Activity 1

The result of Example 1 will be familiar to anyone who has seen

View answer - Untitled part

View answer - Untitled part

3.2 Elastic collisions in general

Page 15 of 72 6th June 2018

and if the final velocity of particle relative to particle is taken to be

then, as a result of an elastic collision

In a one-dimensional elastic collision between two particles the

Combining this result (which incorporates the conservation of

In the next two exercises you can use Equations 8 and 9.

Page 16 of 72 6th June 2018

View answer - Activity 3

View answer - Activity 4

3.3 Four special cases of general

Interactive content is not available in this format.