Conservation of Momentum

www.alexandertutoring.com Conservation of momentum is one of the most important laws in all of physics. It's the only law of physics that has no know violations. That is conservation of momentum is valid both at the atomic and galactic scale. It's used in particle accelerators to calculate collision trajectories. Momentum is defined as mass times velocity. You can think of it as how difficult it is to change an objects motion. For example a super tanker ship in motion has huge momentum because its mass is so large. Therefore it's very difficult to change the motion or direction of a tanker ship. They would coast for miles if the engines were shut off. Conversely a cyclist would have comparatively very small momentum due to having a much smaller mass, and therefore it's much easier to change the cyclists motion and direction. The conservation of momentum states that the total momentum of all objects in a system before an event must equal the total momentum of the system after the event. Often the event is the collision of particles or objects.