Lecture 31: Kinematics of Elastic Collisions

relative velocity in a head-on collision. In the CM frame: • In general we define as the coefficient of restitution • For head-on collisions in non-CM reference frames, the velocity components normal to the collision plane enter the formula Elastic collision Totally inelastic collision u1 u2 m1 m2 v1= -u1 v 2 = -u2 12 12 1 vv uu − = − u1 u2 ................
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