Oblique Collisions Between Billiard Balls for Introductory Physics

• Alan J. DeWeerd ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Redlands

     University of Redlands

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 62, Nº. 9, 2024, págs. 711-714
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • The application of physics to billiards has a long history. For example, Coriolis wrote a book on the topic in 1835.1 An oblique (not head-on) collision between the cue ball and another ball is an interesting example for an intermediate-level course on classical mechanics. At first glance, such collisions seem simple, but there are some subtleties. I will explore what can be reasonably covered in an introductory course without too much mathematics, emphasizing cases where the results are relatively simple.