Momentum

How many of you have been to a baseball game?

Probably the most exciting play in baseball is the homerun.

According to Newton's 2nd Law (F=ma), after the collision of the bat and the ball, the ball move away at a high velocity, and the bat continues along its path at a slower velocity

This is all due to impulse

The impulse on an object is the product of the average force on an object and the time interval over which it acts.

Mathematically it looks like this...

FΔt (the unit is Newton-seconds)

With the baseball, it's a strong force over a very brief period.

This leads us to momentum or the product of the object's mass and velocity

Again, mathematically we see...

p=mv (measured in kg-m/s)

Impulse on an object is equal to the change in momentum, this is called the impulse-momentum theorem.

It looks like this.

FΔt=p_f-p_i