image size in a mirror mastering physics

The fuel is ignited, setting off an explosion that propels the tennis ball through the muzzle of the cannon. The cannon is equipped with a reaction chamber into which a small amount of fuel is inserted. A homemade cannon is placed upon a cart and loaded with a tennis ball. Momentum conservation is often demonstrated in a Physics class with a homemade cannon demonstration. Just like in collisions, total system momentum is conserved.

If the vector sum of all individual parts of the system could be added together to determine the total momentum after the explosion, then it should be the same as the total momentum before the explosion. After the explosion, the individual parts of the system (that is often a collection of fragments from the original object) have momentum. In an explosion, an internal impulse acts in order to propel the parts of a system (often a single object) into a variety of directions. This same principle of momentum conservation can be applied to explosions. For collisions occurring in isolated systems, there are no exceptions to this law. As discussed in a previous part of Lesson 2, total system momentum is conserved for collisions between objects in an isolated system.

Image size in a mirror mastering physics