ABSTRACT
The term momentum may bring to mind a football player running down the field, knocking down players who are trying to stop him. Since momentum is a vector, a change in momentum can result from a change in magnitude and/or direction. The mass and the initial and final velocities are given, so the change in momentum can be easily found. Like total mechanical energy, the total momentum of a system is a conserved quantity under certain conditions. For the linear momentum of a single object to be conserved, one condition must hold that is apparent from the momentum form of Isaac Newton's second law. The conservation of momentum is often a powerful and convenient tool for analyzing situations involving motion and collisions. In general, a collision may be defined as a meeting or interaction of particles or objects that causes an exchange of energy and/or momentum.
