Would more force, less force, or the same amount of force be imparted to another object in an elastic collision compared to an inelastic one?
The set up is if I was playing pool and could have a perfectly elastic collision when I hit the cue ball into another ball and then changed the cue ball out for something with the same mass, but would only make perfectly inelastic collisions, which would I want to use to have the most force on the stationary ball?
Best Answer
There is no direct relationship between the forces involved and degree of elasticity.
As an example, let's roll two clay balls at each other. The collision is completely inelastic as they stick to each other. If we surround the clay balls with a hard plastic shell, the collision becomes almost completely elastic. The time of interaction is tiny, so the forces felt are very high.
A different possibility is to place a light spring between the two balls. Again the interaction is very elastic, but this time the forces involved are much lower than the clay ball collision.
What you can say is that the impulse (change in momentum) is greater in the elastic collision, and (assuming mass and speed are held constant) determines the speed of the object ball after the impact. High force or low force, the object ball will be moving more quickly after the elastic collision.