Collisions Lab

Big Questions:
1. What is the difference between the amount of energy lost in an Elastic vs. Inelastic collision?
2. What is a better conserved quantity? Momentum or energy?


In this week's lab, our main goal was to try and find out whether momentum or energy is better conserved and why. We started this lab by doing an elastic and inelastic collision to see how momentum and kinetic energy changed.   

First we did an inelastic collision. An inelastic collision is when one object collides with another and they both travel in the same direction. After we performed an elastic collision. An elastic collision is when to objects collide and they both travel in two separate directions. During both these collisions we used a sonic range finder that measures sound so we could find the velocity before and after the collision.

Once we collected all our data, we then figured out the percent difference which is the change in energy or momentum. Looking at the percent differences of both inelastic and elastic collisions, made us realize that momentum has a lower percent difference, meaning that momentum is better conserved during any collision no matter elastic or inelastic.

Inelastic Collision's Percent Difference

Elastic Collision's Percent Difference

Real World Connection
 A good real life connection would be golf. Golf is a well known sport and is watched by tons of people around the world. This would be a great example for an elastic collision. During golf the golf club hits a golf ball, energy is then transfered from golf club to the ball. In the process though the ball loses some energy due to factors such as wind.