Online reading assignment: impulse and momentum

Physics 205A, fall semester 2012
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.

The following questions were asked on reading textbook chapters and previewing a presentation on impulse and momentum.

Selected/edited responses are given below.

Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.

"Intuitively it makes sense that when someone falls on concrete they will be more damaged than if they fall on padding. I thought it was interesting how the book explained that it happens because the momentum is changed gradually."

"I was unaware that cars have front ends that crush easily over a longer period of time, which decreases the amount of g's the driver or passenger will experience when in a collision. I just never thought about the affect that the change in stopping time can have on an object."

"Momentum can have multiple meanings not associated with physics."

Two objects moving at the same velocity but with different masses can have a different momentum."

Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.

"The impulse-momentum theorem."

"The concept of adding time to the force increases or decreases the momentum change on the objects involved."

Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.

"Can we please do many examples? :)" (As time allows, both instructor-led, and in student groups working on whiteboards.)