Re: COLLISION 2

[Chuck Britton <britton@ACADEMIC.NCSSM.EDU>]

I think that the giant perfect spring example IS a useful disscussion venue
The elastic collision has all of the springs compressional energy
delivered to the front car, leaving the rear car motionless

In the inelestic case we 'just' need to lock the compressed spring in
place once the relative motion has ceased. I don't see any basic
difficulty in 'capturing' the collision energy in this way. Is it
similar to imagining two hydrogen atoms colliding and forming the
diatomic molecule?
The molecule would have to be in a excited state to contain the
kinetic energy that is lost.

At 12:41 PM -0500 11/28/99, John Denker wrote:
> At 09:20 AM 11/28/99 -0500, David Abineri wrote:
>  >I have tried thinking of the deformation as a giant spring between the
>  >two cars. In the elastic case the energy stored in the spring is
>  >recovered as kinetic energy. In the case of the inelastic collision, the
>  >spring finds itself permanently caught in a compressed condition as they
>  >couple and cannot come apart. Is this a reasonable model to present to
>  >beginning students?
>
> No, because it is reversible in principle.  You need dissipation.

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Chuck Britton                                   Education is what is left when
britton@odie.ncssm.edu                          you have forgotten everything
North Carolina School of Science & Math         you learned in school.
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