Lab 4 Experiment 2, Conservation of Energy and Momentum
Introduction
The purpose of this memo is to identify and discuss the collisions of two carts with varying
masses, but a constant total mass, that stick together after they collide. We carried out this
experiment by pushing one cart to collide with another stationary cart on an air track. We
kept a constant total mass for all three trials, but shifted the mass between the three carts
for three different situations. Our results showed that the highest energy efficiency
occurred when the mass of the moving object was greater than the stationary one and that
momentum is always conserved in collisions. We found this information by calculating the
velocity and kinetic energy of the carts. The ability to analyze the energy efficiency is
important in all collisional activities such as air hockey and bumper cars, all the way to car
accidents and nuclear energy.
Body
The table below shows the kinetic energies, energy efficiencies, energy dissipation, and
differences of momentum for the cart collisions of different masses (where M1 is the cart
that is being pushed and M2 is the cart that is stationary). As shown in this table, the more
mass along with more initial velocity the moving cart has compared to the stationary cart,
the more kinetic energy the whole system has. These numbers also show that the higher the
moving cart is in mass compared to the stationary cart, the higher the energy efficiency.
Also, as expected, the trial with the highest energy efficiency also produces the least
