eli5, when a moving object bounces off of another, does it momentarily stop moving?

433 views

eli5, when a moving object bounces off of another, does it momentarily stop moving?

In: 415

13 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some answers are not really talking about reality, where macroscopic things are usually _continuous_, meaning they don’t instantly change or jump. What actually happens when things collide is that they deform a bit. The energy of impact gets temporarily turned into deformation of the atom structure. This is like a rubber ball, but harder materials deform just as well, but much less, corresponding to even slight changes already storing lots of energy (and if that energy gets too high, things crack or get deformed permanently).

At some point, the deformation reaches its maximum and begins un-deforming, turning its energy back into movement. At that moment and assuming a frontal perfect collision, the object would be stationary. As another answer correctly mentions, the different ends of the object would actually be moving relative to each other, as part of (un-)deforming. If we account for that, one needs to ask what “stationary” means, where I would go with the center of mass. By similar reasons as above, it would also not move at some point in time.

You are viewing 1 out of 13 answers, click here to view all answers.