Newton’s Laws and Linear Momentum

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Claimed by Patrick Todd



The Main Idea

Linear momentum is a vector quantity which is defined by the product of an object's mass, generally denoted as the lowercase "m", and its velocity (a vector), v. Linear momentum is represented by the letter "p" and is generally referred to as momentum for short.

A Mathematical Model

Single Particles

Like velocity, linear momentum is a vector quantity, possessing a direction as well as a magnitude:

[math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{p} = m \mathbf{v} }[/math]

where p is the vector stating the object's momentum in the three directions of three-dimensional space, and where v is the three-dimensional velocity vector giving the object's rate of movement in each direction, and m is the object's mass.

Multiple Particles

The momentum of a system of particles is the sum of both particles' momentum (momenta). If the particles have masses m1 and m2, respectively, and velocities v1 and v2, the total momentum is

[math]\displaystyle{ \begin{align} p &= p_1 + p_2 \\ &= m_1 v_1 + m_2 v_2\,. \end{align} }[/math]

A Computational Model

How do we visualize or predict using this topic. Consider embedding some vpython code here Teach hands-on with GlowScript

Examples

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Connectedness

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History

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See also

Further reading

Chabay, Sherwood. (2015). Matter and Interactions (4th ed., Vol. 1). Raleigh, North Carolina: Wiley.

External links

References

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