Name: David Sopher

Momentum Conservation, session 1

Introduction

In this experiment, we experiment with elastic and inelastic collision of steel balls,
with measurements done before and after. This will prove that momentum and energy are
always conserved in elastic collisions but in inelastic collision only of these will be conserved
and not both.

Experimental Procedure
● Qualitative
○ We started the experiment by taking 10 steel balls
of same mass
○ The balls were kept in the groove between pages of
the textbook
○ The movement of balls was observed when 2 of the
balls with same velocity collided with the remaining
and 2 balls also with the same velocity moved on
the other side while all else remained stationary
○ Another hypothetical scenario was considered in
which 4 balls with same velocity collide but only 2
move on the other side with each having twice the
velocity
○ For both these scenarios kinetic energy and momentum before and after the
collision were calculated and compared
● Quantitative
○ We started the experiment by downloading the application phyphox in mobile
○ Inelastic collision program was started in phyphox, with threshold of 0.2 and
minimum delay of 0.1 to ensure that it accounts for background noise and doesn’t
count a single bounce as multiple bounces
○ A mark was placed on the wall and tennis ball was dropped from this marked point.
The height of this mark from the ground was measured using a ruler
○ The application recorded the time intervals, t, between all bounces of ball on
surface (collision between surface and ball)
○ Using the time intervals and kinematic equations we calculated the maximum height
reached during the bounces
○ Once the heights were calculated, assuming that the change of energy remains
constant throughout, initial height from which ball was drop was also calculated
○ The calculated initial height was compared to the measured height
Data
 Qualitative
 Experiment # Balls Balls Balls moving Balls stationary
collided stationary on other side after collision
before
collision
1 2 8 2 8

2 4 6 2 8

 Quantitative

Collision Initial height Height (m) t (s) t (seconds)

measured, h0 (m) uncertainty uncertainty
percent percent
0 1.04 ± 0.005 0.48% - -
1 - - 0.588 ± 0.001 0.17%
2 - - 0.389 ± 0.001 0.26%
3 - - 0.260 ± 0.001 0.38%
4 - - 0.137 ± 0.001 0.73%

Calculations / Results
 Qualitative

For momentum,

ρ=mv

Experiment # Calculation Total Calculation Total

momentum momentum after
before collision collision
1 2m(v) + 8m(0) 2mv 8m(0) + 2m(v) 2mv
2 4m(v) + 6m(0) 4mv 8m(0) + 2m(2v) 4mv

For kinetic energy,

1 2
KE= m v
2

Experiment # Calculation Total kinetic Calculation Total kinetic

energy before energy after
collision collision
 1 0.5(2mv2) + mv2 0.5(8m(0)) + mv2
0.5(8m(0)) 0.5(2mv2)
2 0.5(4mv2) + 2mv2 0.5(8m(0)) + 4mv2
0.5(6m(0)) 0.5(2m(2v)2)

 Quantitative
For maximum height reached during collisions,

2
1 t
h= g ( )
2 2

Collision Calculation Result (m) Relative

uncertainty
2
1 1 0.588 0.424 0.34%
( 9.81)( )
2 2
2 1 0. 3 8 9 2 0.186 0.52%
( 9.81)( )
2 2

For initial height, h0

h1
h 0=h1 .
h2

Calculation Result (m) Relative uncertainty

0.424 0.967 1.2%
0.424 ( )
0.186

Comparing measured and calculated h0

¿
Percentage of error = ¿ hcalculated −h measured∨ h x 100 ¿
measured

Calculation Result (m)

¿ 0.967−1.04∨ ¿ x 100 ¿ 7.02%
1.04

Discussion / Conclusions
From the experiment, we can conclude that in real world scenarios if the collision is
elastic the total kinetic energy and total momentum will always be the same for the system as
stated by the fundamental laws of conservation of energy and momentum. Going by these laws
in the above experiment there is only one possible outcome that is the number of balls moving
after collision must be equal to the number of balls moving before the collision if the effects of
friction are ignored and collision is perfectly elastic. When another hypothetical case was taken
although the momentum is conserved but kinetic energy isn’t therefore that outcome is not
possible, and this will be true for all other hypothetical scenarios as well in which only one of
the properties might be conserved but not both together making all those inelastic collisions.

The qualitative experiment performed is an inelastic collision between the ball and
surface which results in loss of energy that can be seen by the fact that speed of ball slows
down and so does the consecutive height attained by ball after bouncing. The major sources of
uncertainty in our experiments are from the design of experiment and the instruments used.
The height measured by the ruler will have an uncertainty approximately equal to the smallest
division of the ruler and the ball was approximately dropped from that height so the actual
height will be different. The application used relies on the mobile used which means there the
timer is dependent on the microphone and processing speed of phone, which are potential
sources of lag.