A stationary tennis ball is dropped from a height of 1 m. As a result, the ball’s inertia will
remain constant but its momentum will change. True or false?
A stationary tennis ball is dropped from a height of 1 m. As a result, the ball’s inertia will
remain constant but its momentum will change. True or false?
A stationary tennis ball is dropped from a height of 1 m. As a result, the ball’s inertia will
remain constant but its momentum will change. True or false?
Solution
It is true that the ball’s inertia will remain constant but its momentum will change,
As the ball is initially at the height of h = 1 m, so the ball will have gravitational potential energy
associated to it as PE = mgh,
Now, when we will drop the ball from height h, the potential energy of the ball will convert into
the kinetic energy (as accordance to law of conservation of energy) as KE = 1/2 * mv 2
, hence
the velocity of the ball change and in our case it will increase from v = 0 m/s to V max at the
ground, and so there will be change of momentum of the ball due to change in the velocity
although mass of the ball will remain constant.