[Physics] Momentum change of a ball during rebound

forcesmomentumnewtonian-mechanics

enter image description here

Consider a ball of mass 'm' moving with velocity 'v' and striking a wall, and it rebounds after striking. Assume, the collision is elastic. Now, if i have to find the force on the ball, that would be equal to rate of change of momentum of the ball. This is where, i have trouble, since momentum is a vector quantity therefore the change in momentum should be the vector sum of initial and final momentum. The initial momentum would be $mv$ along positive x-axis, and after collision it will be $mv$ along the negative x-axis. Since the two vectors are at 180° angle, therefore momentum change should be zero.

But if i calculate the momentum change as,

Final momentum – Initial momentum $= m (V_2-V_1) = m[-v – (v)] = -2mv$.

The second answer is right, but what is the flaw in the first approach?

Best Answer

the change in momentum should be the vector sum of initial and final momentum

That's incorrect because you must subtract the quantities in order to obtain the difference between, i.e., by how much it changed.

That becomes clear when considering $\vec{p}=\text{const.}$, say, $\vec{p}=3\hat{\imath}$ in your units; then, according to the quoted text above, the change would be $\Delta \vec{p} = \vec{p}_i +\vec{p}_f = 3\hat{\imath}+3\hat{\imath} = 6\hat{\imath}$, which doesn't make sense, since the change of a constant quantity is zero (since constant means that it doesn't change), which is what you get from your second way of calculating: $$ \Delta \vec{p} = \vec{p}_f -\vec{p}_i.$$

Then, for the constant $\vec{p}$ example, you get $ \Delta \vec{p} = 3\hat{\imath}-3\hat{\imath} = \vec{0}$.