Elastic Collisions of Two Spheres

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In an elastic collision, both momentum and kinetic energy are conserved. This Demonstration models collisions between two hard spheres of equal density. You can vary the relative mass and the impact parameter , the distance of closest approach of the centers if the spheres are undeflected. For a head-on collision,
. You can observe the collision in slow motion in either the laboratory or the center-of-mass frame of reference. The spheres leave dotted contrails to help you trace their trajectories.
Contributed by: S. M. Blinder (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
Snapshot 1: The simplest case is a head-on collision between identical spheres: they simply exchange velocities.
Snapshot 2: The trajectories of two identical spheres in any angular collision are exactly perpendicular.
Snapshot 3: A lighter sphere gets the worst of a collision.
Snapshot 4: Here is the same collision viewed in center-of mass frame.
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