Thread: Tell me how to solve this

Is this collision perfectly elastic/inelastic?

Don't forget that you can use conservation of momentum to help you solve it.

I hope that helps.

Originally Posted by R.D.735

Is this collision perfectly elastic/inelastic?

Don't forget that you can use conservation of momentum to help you solve it.

I hope that helps.

It's perfectly elastic; ie there is no friction from the particles bouncing off of each other. I'm trying to conserve momentum.

Weird, the picture works fine for me. Here's an embedded one:

I just get a red x, can you upload it on imageshack or something? Or maybe just write out the variables.

I mentioned all the variables

Here is it on imageshack

Can't see that eiher, and I meant numbers .

No numbers, I need to solve it for a general situation.

Maybe if I don't embed the image: http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/5426/39764143va7.jpg

I'll describe the pictures

I have an angle between the particles (the normal to their touching surfaces), I can use it as either the angle or a normalized vector [dx, dy]

The mass variables are m1 and m2

The velocity is stored in vectors [vx, vy]. Of course I can go to angle and magnitude if I need to with Pythagorean theorem and inverse tangent.

From that information I'm trying to figure out an algorithm to figure out the trajectory of the particles after the collision (preserving momentum) for a perfectly elastic collision and store them in a vector [tx, ty] for both particles.

If I can do it all with vectors I'd be happy, but I doubt it. I can convert to magnitude + angle to [x, y] very easily.

Image cannot be displayed because it contains errors.