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- There are two ideal cases in which it is
possible to determine how a particle will move after a collision:
- Frontal elastic collisions, in which
both kinetic energy and linear momenta are conserved.
- Completely inelastic frontal collisions,
where both particles remain stuck together after the impact. This
case produces the maximum loss of energy possible.
- Real collisions oscillate between these two extremes
according to the value of the so-called coefficient of restitution.
Furthermore, collisions need not be frontal. A tangential collision
has an impact parameter value of 0, while in a frontal collision
this parameter is equal to 1.
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