Question

There are two main types of collisions that you will study: elastic and perfectly inelastic. In an elastic collision, kinetic energy is conserved. In a perfectly inelastic collision, the particles stick together and thus retain the same velocity after the collision.

a. True
b. False

Answer 1

The first part is right (KE is conserved in an elastic collision).

The second part of the statement is false,.

Since momentum is conserved, let moving mass m strike stationary mass M:

m v = (m + M) V where m v is the momentum in

Obviously, v does not equal V.