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Homework Help: Conservation of energy in elastic collision

  1. Mar 25, 2010 #1

    Need help with question 13
    2. Relevant equations

    Conservation of energy and momentum occurs in elastic collision

    3. The attempt at a solution

    Why would the block 2 have an increase in energy? The velocity of block 2 will now be positive instead of negative but velocity is squared anyway.
    The computer's answer was A. Increase, but shouldn't it remain the same?
  2. jcsd
  3. Mar 25, 2010 #2


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    Gold Member

    Imagine the situation here. A much much heavier object slams into an object with comparable (actually, the same!) speeds. What do you expect the smaller object to do?