eli5, when a moving object bounces off of another, does it momentarily stop moving?
In: 415
No. If an object is moving very fast in a straight line, and you measure it’s speed at an exact moment, it’s speed is zero (because it hasn’t moved any distance in that exact moment). The perception that it has stopped comes from the fact that we’ve eliminated time while measuring.
This is because at an exact moment, the time taken to travel a distance is zero, and it cant go anywhere in zero time.
This happens even if the object changes direction, like when it bounces. If you measure at an exact moment, no distance is traveled so the speed is zero.
Mathematically, if you measure in the tiniest amount of time possible, very close to the moment it bounces, it’s distance travelled will be small, but having traveled in both directions it will have traveled distance and will have speed.
We could talk about momentum and vectors and that this was a big problem in math centuries ago, and let to the invention of calculus.
But this is ELI5
**Edit** downvotes ?
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