Explanations

The blue ball has always the same mass and the same initial velocity. The mass of the other ball (orange) can be chosen using the slider. Its mass can be chosen to be from 1 to 6 times the mass of the blue ball.

The collisions between the balls and between ball and wall are all perfectly elastic.

The tables show information about masses (m), velocities (v) and momenta (mv)as well as the total momentum (the sum of momenta of both balls).

It is interesting to notice that the total momentum is conserved during collisions between balls but not in collisions between ball and the wall. Velocity is positive when moving towards the right and vice versa. It can also be noticed that the larger the mass of the orange ball, the more difficult is to get it moving. The increase in the radius of the balls is a way of visualizing the increase in mass that is considered in the respective calculations.

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