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Data and Calculations For each time that you measured, calculate the correspondi

ID: 1602280 • Letter: D

Question

Data and Calculations For each time that you measured, calculate the corresponding glider velocity. (e.g., where the velocity is positive when the glider moves to the right and negative when it moves to the left.) Use your measured values to calculate p and p, the combined momentum of the gliders before and after the collision. Record your results in the table. Was momentum conserved in each of your collisions? If not, try to explain any discrepancies. If a glider collides with the end of the air track and rebounds, it will have nearly the same momentum it had before it collided, but in opposite direction. Is momentum conserved in such a collision? Explain. Suppose the air track was tilted during the experiment. Would momentum he conserved in the collision? Why or why not? Turn in (a) This sheet of instructions with data and calculations. (b) The answers to the questions.

Explanation / Answer

Question 1:

On observing the tabulation of results obtained from the experiments, one can infer if the momentum is conserved or not. Momentum is said to be conserved if the initial momentum is the same as that of the final momentum.

On studying the data measure for each collision, the magnitudes of initial and final momentum are not the same in all the cases been tabulated. Hence one can arrive at a conclusion that the momentum is not conserved in all the collisions.

Question 2:

Linear Momentum is defined as product of the mass of an object and the vector velocity. Before collision, the glider possesses a linear momentum of positive sign i.e. assuming it is moving towards the right to collide with the air track. It is evident from the tabulation that the airtrack is stationary before collision.

Now the glider moves to the left after collision with the same momentum it had before collision. The momentum is negative for glider. The momentum is said to be conserved only if the air track moves to the right having a momentum double that of the glider so that the net momentum after collision is the same as that of the before collision.

If P1 is momentum of glider before collision and -P1 after collsion, the airtrack must have Momentum equal to 2M1 after collision. Hence net momentum is 2P1-P1= P1 which was before collision. If not the momentum is not conserved.

Question 3:

More data required to answer this part as information regarding the conudct of the experiment is unavailable to come to a conclusion.