System: A system is a physical configuration of particles and or objects that we study.

Isolated system: An isolated system is a physical configuration of particles and or objects that we study that doesn't
exchange any matter with its surroundings and is not subject to any force whose source is external to the system.
Calculating the total momentum of a system
1. Two billiard balls roll towards each other. They each have a mass of 0,3 kg. Ball 1 is moving
at v⃗ 1=1 m⋅s−1v→1=1 m·s−1 to the right, while ball 2 is moving at v⃗ 2=0,8 m⋅s−1v→2=0,8 m·s−1 to the left. Calculate the
total momentum of the system.

2. Two golf balls roll towards each other. They each have a mass of 100 g. Ball 1 is moving
at v⃗ 1=2,4 m⋅s−1v→1=2,4 m·s−1 to the right, while ball 2 is moving at v⃗ 2=3 m⋅s−1v→2=3 m·s−1 to the left. Calculate the
total momentum of the system.

3. Two motorcycles are involved in a head on collision. Motorcycle A has a mass of 200 kg and was travelling at 120
km·hr−1 south. Motor cycle B has a mass of 250 kg and was travelling north at 100 km·hr −1. A and B are about to collide.
Calculate the momentum of the system before the collision takes place.

4. A 700 kg truck is travelling north at a velocity of 40 km·hr −1 when it is approached by a 500 kg car travelling south at a
velocity of 100 km·hr−1. Calculate the total momentum of the system.

5. A toy car of mass 1 kg moves westwards with a speed of 2 m·s −1. It collides head-on with a toy train. The train has a
mass of 1,5 kg and is moving at a speed of 1,5 m·s−1 eastwards. If the car rebounds at 2,05 m·s−1, calculate the final velocity
of the train.

6. A jet flies at a speed of 275 m·s−1. The pilot fires a missile forward off a mounting at a speed of 700 m·s −1 relative to the
ground. The respective masses of the jet and the missile are 5000 kg and 50 kg. Treating the system as an isolated system,
calculate the new speed of the jet immediately after the missile had been fired.

7. A bullet of mass 50 g travelling horizontally to the right at 500 m·s−1 strikes a stationary wooden block of mass 2 kg resting
on a smooth horizontal surface. The bullet goes through the block and comes out on the other side at 200 m·s −1. Calculate
the speed of the block after the bullet has come out the other side.

An elastic collision

1. Consider a collision between two pool balls. Ball 1 is at rest and ball 2 is moving towards it with a speed of 2 m·s −1. The
mass of each ball is 0,3 kg. After the balls collide elastically, ball 2 comes to an immediate stop and ball 1 moves off. What
is the final velocity of ball 1?

2. Consider 2 marbles. Marble 1 has mass 50 g and marble 2 has mass 100 g. Edward rolls marble 2 along the ground
towards marble 1 in the positive x-direction. Marble 1 is initially at rest and marble 2 has a velocity of 3 m·s−1 in the positive
x-direction. After they collide elastically, both marbles are moving. What is the final velocity of each marble?

Colliding billiard balls

Two billiard balls each with a mass of 150 g collide head-on in an elastic collision. Ball 1 was travelling at a speed of 2
m·s−1 and ball 2 at a speed of 1,5 m·s−1. After the collision, ball 1 travels away from ball 2 at a velocity of 1,5 m·s −1.

1. Calculate the velocity of ball 2 after the collision.

2. Prove that the collision was elastic. Show calculations.

An inelastic collision
1. Consider the collision of two cars. Car 1 is at rest and Car 2 is moving at a speed of 2 m·s −1 to the left. Both cars each
have a mass of 500 kg. The cars collide inelastically and stick together. What is the resulting velocity of the resulting mass
of metal?

2. Two cars of mass 900 kg each collide head-on and stick together. Determine the final velocity of the cars if car 1 was
travelling at 15 m·s−1 and car 2 was travelling at 20 m·s−1.
Problem: What is the force exerted by Big Ben on the Empire State building? Assume that Big Ben has a mass
of 108 kilograms and the Empire State building 109 kilograms. The distance between them is about 5000 kilometers and Big
Ben is due east of the Empire State building.

The direction of the force clearly attracts the Empire State towards Big Ben. So the direction is a vector pointing due east
from New York. The magnitude is given by Newton's Law:

F= = = 2.67×10-7 N

Clearly, the gravitational force is negligibly small, even for quite large objects.

Problem: What is the gravitational force that the sun exerts on the earth? The earth on the sun? In what direction do these
act? ( M e = 5.98×1024 and M s = 1.99×1030 and the earth-sun distance is 150×109meters).

First, consider the directions. The force acts along the direction such that it attracts each body radially along a line towards
their common center of mass. For most practical purposes, this means a line connecting the center of the sun to the center
of the earth. The magnitude of both forces is the same, as we would expect from Newton's Third Law, and they act in
opposite directions, both attracting each other mutually. The magnitude is given by:

F= = = 3.53×1022

Problem :

Figure %: alignment of Mercury, Venus and the Sun.

If Mercury, Venus and the sun are aligned in a right triangle, as shown, then calculate the vector sum of the forces on Venus
due to both Mercury and the Sun. What is the direction and magnitude of the resulting force? (Sun-Venus distance r v =
108×109 meters, Sun-Mercury distance r m = 57.6×109 meters, mass of Sun M s = 1.99×1030kilograms, mass of
Mercury M m = 3.3×1023 kilograms, mass of VenusM v = 4.87×1024 kilograms).

The magnitude of the force on Venus due to the sun is given by:

Fs= = 5.54×1022

The distance between Mercury and Venus is given by r mv = = 1.08×1011 meters. The magnitude of the force
from Mercury, then, is:

Fm= = 9.19×1015

The directions of these forces are along the lines connecting the planets. If the size of the forces was comparable, we would
have to resolve each vector force into components perpendicular and parallel to some direction, and then sum these
components in order to find the final direction of the force. In this case however, the force due to the sun is more than a
million times greater than the force due to Mercury, and so the net force is very well approximated by the magnitude and
direction of the force due to the sun.
Problem : It is possible to simulate "weightless" conditions by flying a plane in an arc such that the centripetal acceleration
exactly cancels the acceleration due to gravity. Such a plane was used by NASA when training astronauts. What would be
the required speed at the top of an arc of radius 1000 metres?

We require an acceleration that exactly cancels that due to gravity -- that is, exactly 9.8 m/sec 2 . Centripetal acceleration is
given by a c = . We have been given r = 1000 meters, so v = = 99 m/s.

Problem : Show using Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation that the period of orbit of a binary star system is given by:

T2=

Where m 1 and m 2 are the masses of the respective stars and d is the distance between them. Notice that we derived the
same result in a problem in the previous section, using the reduced mass and Kepler's Third Law.

Consider the center of mass of the binary star system to be at the origin. Since the planets must be on opposite sides of
their center of mass, it must be true that m 1 r 1 - m 2 r 2 = 0 where r 1 and r 2 are the radii of orbit.
Since r 2 + r 1 = dâá’r 2 = d - r 1 , we can write m 1 r 1 = m 2 r2 = m 2(d - r 1) . Rearranging, we can solve for r 1 : r 1 =
d . Now the force acting between the two masses is given by Newton's Law:

F=

We can proceed as we did in deriving Kepler's Third Law from Newton's Law, and say that this force must be equal to the
centripetal force acting on m 1 :

= =

Rearranging and then substituting the expression we found for r 1 , we have:

T2= = d3=

Which is the same result we derived from Kepler's Third Law.