Account for a one-dimensional collision
Adjust the controls, inspect the calculated response and use the reading links to place the model in its physical context.
Interactive model: Account for a one-dimensional collision. Enable JavaScript to adjust its controls.
v₁′ = (1 − em₂)/(1 + m₂); v₂′ = (1 + e)/(1 + m₂)
Body 1 has mass 1 and initial velocity 1; body 2 starts at rest. An isolated one-dimensional encounter uses restitution 0 ≤ e ≤ 1. Lost translational kinetic energy becomes internal modes, not missing energy.
What this model assumes
Body 1 has mass 1 and initial velocity 1; body 2 starts at rest. An isolated one-dimensional encounter uses restitution 0 ≤ e ≤ 1. Lost translational kinetic energy becomes internal modes, not missing energy.
How to explore it
Begin with the default values. Change one control at a time and watch both the graph and the readouts. Then reset the model and change another parameter. This isolates which input produces the effect you are seeing.
The plotted values are generated from the displayed equation. Downloading the calculated data lets you inspect the numerical series or compare it with a calculation of your own. The data are synthetic model outputs, not observations from an apparatus.
Before carrying a prediction into an experiment, match the model’s assumptions to the actual system: the relevant degrees of freedom, boundary conditions, noise, losses and measurement convention. The linked articles explain which comparison is physically meaningful.
Calculated model image. Body 1 has mass 1 and initial velocity 1; body 2 starts at rest. An isolated one-dimensional encounter uses restitution 0 ≤ e ≤ 1. Lost translational kinetic energy becomes internal modes, not missing energy. Default control values are used in this fixed figure.
Download SVG ↓Collisions and encounters
What counts as a collision?
Are two particles interacting, two waves overlapping, or a boundary striking a medium?
Momentum exchange without loss of total kinetic energy
Which assumptions define an elastic collision?
Energy transferred to internal degrees of freedom
What changes when an encounter excites, heats, or transforms its participants?
A quantum description of an encounter
How do incoming states and interaction potentials determine outgoing probabilities?
Why overlapping waves need not damage each other
What does linear superposition predict during and after an encounter?
When waves influence one another’s evolution
Which nonlinear terms enable energy transfer or persistent changes?
Shape-preserving waves in model-dependent collisions
Why can some localized waves survive an encounter?
Geometry changes a collision outcome
How do offset, angle, and relative speed affect interaction probabilities?
Reconstructing what happened in an encounter
Which measurements close the momentum and energy accounts?
Does an encounter imply quantum collapse?
How can an interaction produce scattering or entanglement without a new collapse law?