What is meaning of collision in Physics?
Collision is important and interesting topic of physics, If you have already studies previous post like centre of mass, conservation of momentum and your concept is clear then you will enjoy learning collision. We will study from basic concept of collision to depth concept of collision step by step in easiest way so that you can understand complete concept of collision, don't worry your all doubt and confusion will clear about collision and you will learn some new concept of collision in this post. If you don't know about conservation of momentum then i will suggest you to refer post conservation of momentum concept so lets start collision.
What is meaning of collision in details?
The meaning of collision in Physics is not like that two bodies collide together.The real meaning of collision is if any one body velocity effect the other body velocity or one body momentum effect other body momentum, it is not necessary to collide with other body but effect the momentum of other body is called collision.
But in our syllabus all question will be based upon the collide cases in which the momentum will exchange.So collision is an event in which two bodies strike each other applying large force for a small time.
So all the story of collision will be based upon the momentum, Hence any kind of collision you will apply conservation of momentum to the system, Why system ? because a single body can not collide itself at least two body required so two body system.
Hence the initial momentum of two body will be same as final momentum of two body and will also be same in between initial and final position.
So momentum remains conserved throughout the collision
We see example of collision in day to day life like when we drop a ball on the ground it reaches the ground and strike the ground then bounce back to some height. The time at which ball strike the ground that event is called collision see below picture.
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