More on Momentum

Physics B completed their impulse-momentum labs today and it was quickly evident that more elastic materials stretched their forces over long time intervals, delivering less of a force to the carts to which they were attached. If you were a passenger in that cart, that would mean you would experience the slowing down, stopping, changing direction and speeding up more gently than would a passenger in the cart attached to the less elastic material. We'll discuss the lab in class tomorrow, so you'll have the impulse-momentum lecture and lab discussion under your belt before you go to complete the lab write up. Tomorrow also finds folks conducting another lab, this one on how manipulating mass and velocity affect an on object's momentum.

Physics F had a discussion of conservation of momentum today. Momentum is conserved in interactions, when outside forces are lacking. When one object loses momentum, it is gained by the second object in the interaction. The resulting velocity change can be predicted using this principle. The transfer of momentum between objects was demonstrated and the special circumstance of conservation of momentum in stationary systems (cannon/cannon ball; gun/bullet). Tomorrow, we'll go over the homework questions before examining the types and properties of collisions.

Honors Physics took their forces and laws of motion exam and tomorrow finds students engaged in a discussion of work.

Physical Science took a step off the path to review the basic math skills of cross-multiplication and isolating variables in simple algebraic expressions. Students were also highly encouraged to practice with their calculators to become quick and efficient working common functions such as inputting values in scientific notation, squaring values and taking square-roots and working with multi-variable numerators and/or denominators when dealing with fractions. The MCAS exam allows you to use your own calculator, so it is very much to your benefit to become adept with it as soon as possible. Students were then given more time to work the gravitational forces problems and should complete those for homework.

Homework

Honors Physics: None
Physics B: None
Physics E: p. 100-101 of ancillary packet #2, 7, 12, 14, 15, 26
Physical Science: Complete gravitational forces worksheet problems