IMPULSIVE FORCE DEFINITION PHYSICS HOW TO

The way you calculate each is completely different. However, since newton is really kilogram meter per second squared, when you combine those definitions you’ll find that the unit of impulse is kilogram meter per second, and that impulse really has the same SI units as the momentum – which is a consequence of impulse really representing a change in momentum.ĭifference between Momentum and Impulse Calculation for Momentum vs.

The SI units of an impulse is the newton second. This is the most common example that is used to describe how momentum and impulse are fundamentally not the same thing. However, the impulse could be the same no matter if you act for 5 or 10 seconds.įor example, if you apply a small force over a long period of time or a strong force over a smaller period of time, you can do the same effect, and the object you applied that force on would have the same momentum change, and therefore the same impulse. Another way to represent impulse is as a change in the momentum of a body or a system of bodies.įor example, if you were pushing a box of a certain mass, and you were pushing it with constant force for two different periods of time, the change in momentum (in other words – impulse) would be larger in one case than it is in the other, because you applied the force for a longer period of time. Impulse, in technical terms, represents an integral of a force over a certain time interval, which is basically calculating the area under the graph of the force from one point in time to the other. The resulting vector will be the momentum of the entire system. If a system of more than one body is regarded, you can calculate its momentum by calculating the momentum of each individual particle in that system and then adding them together as vectors. Its SI unit is kilogram meter per second, and it plays a crucial role in calculating the force from Newton’s second law of motion, because the force is equal to the rate of change of momentum. Momentum, in this sense, is a vector that can be calculated by multiplying the mass of an object with its velocity (which is also a vector and the reason momentum is a vector as well). Therefore, for the sake of clarity, this article will focus solely on the kinetic momentum, or, in most cases, just the term momentum in general. However, these are highly technical definitions of momentum that differ from the common ones.

IMPULSIVE FORCE DEFINITION PHYSICS HOW TO

You can then further define other mathematical structures, such as Lagrangians or Hamiltonians, in order to describe how to calculate the kinetic momentum from the generalized one, with a specified coordinate system and any additional physical constraints.

The value of the generalized momentum doesn’t depend on a coordinate system or other constrains. In advanced formulations of classical mechanics, you can use something called “generalized momentum”.

This results in both concepts having the same units, but completely different meanings, describing completely different phenomena and being calculated in two completely different ways. However, while the momentum of an object is calculated as the product of mass and velocity of that object, the impulse represents the change of momentum of a system over a certain period of time. However, they are fundamentally not the same, and are calculated in different ways.īoth momentum and impulse are concepts from classical mechanics, a branch of physics that revolves around the Newton’s second law of motion.

Most of the confusion arises from the fact that both of these concepts have the same units – mass times velocity. Momentum and impulse are both terms that describe concepts in physics that are relatively similar.

Impulsive force definition physics