Imagine you have just witnessed a small avalanche on a mountain while skiing, and two slushy snowballs just crashed together in a perfectly inelastic collision. they are moving as one larger snowball, as a combined mass. before the collision, snowball a was 7 kg and had initial momentum of –14 kg · m/s; therefore, its velocity must have been ? m/s snowball b had initial momentum of 15 kg ∙ m/s, and a velocity of 5 m/s; therefore, its mass must have been ? kg. recognizing that momentum is conserved in inelastic collisions, the total momentum of the combined snowballs after the collision must be ? kg · m/s.

Read the scenario and choose the correct answers.

Imagine you have just witnessed a small avalanche on a mountain while skiing, and two slushy snowballs just crashed together in a perfectly inelastic collision. They are moving as one larger snowball, as a combined mass.

Before the collision, snowball A was 7 kg and had initial momentum of –14 kg · m/s; therefore, its  velocity must have been  

✔ –2

m/s.

Snowball B had initial momentum of 15 kg ∙ m/s, and a velocity of 5 m/s; therefore, its mass must have been  

✔ 3

kg.

Recognizing that momentum is conserved in inelastic collisions, the total momentum of the combined snowballs after the collision must be  

✔ 1

kg · m/s.

v 154.9= 0.9 length length s little over 154.9cm