Momentum is mass times velocity, and because velocity has a direction, so does momentum. When two carts collide on a level track, the forces they exert on each other are equal and opposite and act for the same time, so whatever momentum one cart loses the other gains. The total momentum before the collision therefore equals the total after, whether the carts bounce apart or stick together, and a practical investigation tests this by measuring masses and velocities either side of the impact. This is the real knowscape from knowhere, not a picture of one. Drag it. Watch what actually changes.
Motion never changes on its own: it takes a net force. Every idea here follows that one push a different way. At any instant it sets acceleration; held over time it changes momentum; pushed through a distance it moves energy.
Cart A rolls into cart B on a track while ticker-tape dots record both speeds. Load cart B or change the bumper and the carts bounce, split or stick, yet the momentum arrows after the crash always add tip to tail to the same total as before.
knowhere maps every concept to what it rests on and what rests on it — 3 underneath this one, 0 built on top. Each one says why, in a sentence, not as an arrow on a diagram.
Each one is its own knowscape in the app — built for how a particular student takes things in, not one explanation handed to everybody.
Every HSC and VCE concept in knowhere is built like this one — mapped to your curriculum, never capped by it. Free for a week. No lock-in, cancel inside the week and pay nothing.
Free for a week, then a plan you can stop any time.
not your card? send it to whoever's is.
VCE Study Design extracts used by permission, © VCAA. VCE® is a registered trademark of the VCAA. The VCAA does not endorse or make any warranties regarding this study resource. Current VCE Study Designs, past VCE exams and related content can be accessed directly at www.vcaa.vic.edu.au.