eric343
Member of the Trade: Audiogeek: The "E" in META42
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- Jun 23, 2001
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The table above shows the data I collected through a series of interactions between two carts on a track (two different types of cart-cart interactions were used – collisions and explosions. In collisions, the cars collided in the center; either with both cars ‘pushing’ off from the ends of the track (collision type 1) or with the blue car starting at rest, in the middle of the track (type 2). In explosions, the two carts started in the middle with one plunger pushing against the other cart:
Initial velocity is the velocity at which the carts were traveling before they interacted, final velocity is the velocity after they interacted)
The thing is, according to the table, the two-cart system gained momentum in all cases, even though no outside forces were applied to them. Since this seems to violate the law of conservation of energy, I'm thinking I did something wrong. Any suggestions?