Article
1/23/2021

Momentum

  • Momentum is the measure of how difficult it is to change an objects' velocity.
  • Momentum can be increased by increasing the mass of the object or the velocity of the object.
  • e.g. a lorry going at 80km/h down a hill with a very heavy load would have a big momentum. - It would be very difficult to stop! (If this was an exam question you would have to convert hours to seconds and km to m)
  • The formula for calculating momentum is:
  • Momentum (kgm/s) = mass (kg) x velocity (m/s)
  • Conservation of momentum just shows that momentum is never lost but just transferred from one object to another e.g. if the big lorry runs into a car then all the momentum will be transferred to the car.