if I go down a slide but instead of carrying on to the end, I grip the sides and stop myself: where does my momentum go?

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I had crap science teachers so forces in physics never really made sense to me. I understand that my momentum has a kind of energy to it…so if I stop myself on the slide where does that energy go?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

From a momentum perspective:

Your hands slow down, the slide, earth, and air molecules around you speed up. Most of it goes to earth, but earth is massive so it doesn’t speed up much at all. The slide and air molecules speed up in the form of heat and sound, which can be thought of us vibrations, or another measurement of movement. Higher speed= hotter material or louder noise, roughly.

From an energy perspective:

You have kinetic energy while moving. When you stop that energy transfers into the slide as heat, the air molecules as sound, and the earth as kinetic energy. Since kinetic energy, like momentum, depends on mass, the earth being extremely massive causes the change in kinetic energy to result in barely any change in movement.

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