Physics · Ch 4 — Laws of Motion
Impulse of a Force
Impulse of a Force
Newton's first law says an unbalanced force changes momentum; the second law makes this precise, , so . The quantity 'change in momentum' produced by a force is given its own name: the IMPULSE of the force, . …
What this figure shows. A force-versus-time (F-t) graph with the force axis starting at zero, depicting a typical collision (e.g. bat striking ball): the curve starts at zero force, rises smoothly to a single maximum (peak) somewhere in the middle of the contact interval, then decreases back to zero, tracing a roughly bell/hump-shaped curve over the short contact duration (delta t). The entire region under this hump-shaped curve is shaded, representing the impulse (the product of force and time, i.e., the area under the F-t curve); the caption notes that for a softer object (e.g. a softer tennis ball) the collision time is longer and the peak force is correspondingly s …