Greetings,
I was thinking about bouncing a tennis ball against a wall and how its momentum and kinetic energy would change. I asked a friend of mine and he answered that the ball would transfer more forward momentum than it had to the wall but its kinetic energy would remain constant. How is that possible? I know that the ball will strike the wall with momentum p and and bounce back with a momentum -p ignoring any forces (including gravity) that affect my ball-wall system. The energy should be conserved as the wall is assumed to be frictionless. How is it then, that the ball rebounds off the wall by transferring more momentum than it had? I assumed that this is a closed system, so therefore this should be an elastic collision. Am I wrong in doing so? And if so, how does the momentum actually reverse direction? Thanks for any answers
I was thinking about bouncing a tennis ball against a wall and how its momentum and kinetic energy would change. I asked a friend of mine and he answered that the ball would transfer more forward momentum than it had to the wall but its kinetic energy would remain constant. How is that possible? I know that the ball will strike the wall with momentum p and and bounce back with a momentum -p ignoring any forces (including gravity) that affect my ball-wall system. The energy should be conserved as the wall is assumed to be frictionless. How is it then, that the ball rebounds off the wall by transferring more momentum than it had? I assumed that this is a closed system, so therefore this should be an elastic collision. Am I wrong in doing so? And if so, how does the momentum actually reverse direction? Thanks for any answers