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crivea24
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Homework Statement
Apply the Law of Conservation of Momentum to the act of pitching a baseball.
Homework Equations
f=ma
The Attempt at a Solution
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Here's a hint. Assume that at the beginning, before the pitch is thrown, the relative velocities of the ball, the pitcher and the Earth, are all zero. So how does Conservation of Momentum relate the momentums of the ball, the pitcher and the Earth after the pitch is thrown?crivea24 said:Apply the Law of Conservation of Momentum to the act of pitching a baseball.
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The Law of Conservation of Momentum states that in a closed system, the total momentum of the system remains constant. This means that the total amount of momentum before a collision or interaction is equal to the total amount of momentum after the collision or interaction.
Momentum is a measure of an object's motion and is equal to the product of its mass and velocity. In other words, the more massive an object is and the faster it is moving, the greater its momentum will be.
A closed system is a system in which there is no external force acting on the objects within the system. This means that the total momentum of the system will not change unless there is an external force acting on it.
Momentum is conserved because of the fundamental laws of physics, specifically the laws of motion and the law of conservation of energy. When two objects interact, they exert equal and opposite forces on each other, resulting in the conservation of momentum.
Some examples of the Law of Conservation of Momentum in real life include a ball bouncing off a wall, a car colliding with another car, or a rocket launching into space. In all of these scenarios, the total momentum of the system remains constant, even though there may be changes in the individual objects' velocities.