can anyone give an example of imperfect inelastic collision and how is it different from perfect inelastic. My teacher and the book didn't mention anything about imperfect one
Two atoms of a gas bumping into each other is a perfectly elastic collision most of the time, unless the velocity is high enough to excite an electron to a higher energy level.
Collisions of large objects are never perfectly elastic, but some, such as billiard balls, are very close to perfect.
A collision of two cars is inelastic.
One does not use the terms "perfect" or "imperfect" for inelastic collisions. They are what they are.
Certainly! I can provide you with an example of an imperfect inelastic collision and explain how it differs from a perfect inelastic collision.
In an inelastic collision, two objects collide and stick together, conserving momentum but not necessarily kinetic energy. In a perfect inelastic collision, the two objects stick together and move as one mass after the collision. This means that the final velocity of both objects is the same. However, in an imperfect inelastic collision, the two objects also stick together but move with different final velocities.
Here's an example to illustrate this:
Imagine two cars, car A with a mass of 1000 kg and car B with a mass of 1500 kg, traveling towards each other. Car A is initially moving at 20 m/s to the right, and car B is moving at 10 m/s to the left. They collide and stick together.
In a perfect inelastic collision, both cars would move together as one mass after the collision. The magnitude of the final velocity would be the average of their initial velocities. So, in this case, the final velocity would be (20 m/s + (-10 m/s))/2 = 5 m/s to the right. Both cars would move together at 5 m/s to the right after the collision.
However, in an imperfect inelastic collision, the two cars stick together but move with different final velocities. Let's say that after the collision, car A has a final velocity of 4 m/s to the right, and car B has a final velocity of 2 m/s to the right. This means that even though both cars are stuck together and move together as one mass, they do not move with the same final velocity.
The key difference is that in a perfect inelastic collision, the two objects stick together and move with the same final velocity, while in an imperfect inelastic collision, they stick together but move with different final velocities.
It's worth noting that the concept of imperfect inelastic collisions may not always be explicitly explained in introductory physics courses or textbooks. However, it can be considered as a variation or extension of the concept of inelastic collisions to better reflect real-world scenarios.