Physics Post 13

For this physics post I will be explaining a picture I took of a marble being flicked at a thumb drive. For this picture, we are assuming that the thumb drive is the same mass as the marble, and the marble contacts the thumb drive perfectly. If we assume those properties are in effect, the initial velocity of the marble should become the final velocity of the thumb drive and the thumb drive, which is at rest, should move in a direction opposite of the incoming marble. Also, the marbles final velocity should be zero. This shows the conservation of momentum. Since the items are of equal mass they should perfectly exchange their velocities; the equation m1v1(initial) + m2v2(initial) = m1v1(final) + m2v2(final) proves this. When you condense the formula to m(v1+v2)initial = m(v1+v2)final (since m1=m2 you can condense them and put them out of the parentheses), and you cancel out the masses (since they remain constant) you are left with v1+v2(initial) = v1+v2(final). This shows that if v1 = something and v2 = 0 and if v1's initial velocity is transferred into v2's final velocity, v1 must become 0 in order to balance the equation.