Talk:Inelastic collision

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"inelastic" redirect

searching for "inelastic" redirects to the disambiguation page for the word "elastic" either inelastic collisions should be added to the disambiguation page for "elastic" or a search for "inelastic" should redirect to this article. I do not know how to do the latter, and am not sure of which course of action should be taken. -aliencam (talk) 08:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expound on formulas

I can't help but notice that several physics and chemistry articles present formulas as though these formulas are infallible and should just be swallowed as is without being understood. There should be an explanation on the principles behind the formula. Micasta (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True dat. -random person- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.149.186.41 (talk) 19:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Inelastic Collisions do not preserve momentum

"Inelastic collisions may not conserve kinetic energy, but they do obey conservation of momentum. Simple ballistic pendulum problems obey the conservation of kinetic energy only when the block swings to its largest angle."

This is plain wrong. In a completely inelastic collision, the receiving body absorbs all momentum of the striking body and therefore does not move. Therefore the resulting momentum is zero as the resultant velocity is zero.

Therefore I have clobbered this sentence.

The only conservation in an inelastic collision is of total energy. Kinetic energy AND momentum are not conserved.