UH Football Momentum

I went to the UH football game on Sat. when they played Idaho State. They killed Idaho really badly. Anyways, during the game I saw concepts that we have been learning in physics this chapter. In this picture, UH's offense is preparing for a snap against the defense of Idaho. When the offensive and defensive lines come crashing into each other this causes a sticky (also known as a inelastic) collision occurs. This means they stick together and their momentum is conserved. Also, right after the collision occurs, they have the same final velocity. When the lines do collide, each player has momentum, which is mass x velocity. So the player with the bigger mass and velocity will have the greater momentum. ( Thus most offensive and defensive lines are huge!) In the conservation of momentum, it states that when 2 things collide they transfer momentum so what one loses the other gains.

Energy on the Slopes

Here is a pic of me and my family when we went to Lake Tahoe. I am on the far right with the snowboard. (Sorry the picture is really blurry!) When we were on the mountain, we were actually experiencing physics. At the top, before we started going down, we had potential energy, which would equal mass times gravity times the height of our elevation to the lodge. This stored energy would be converted into kinetic energy as we started to move and this kinetic energy can be calculated as 1/2mass times velocity squared. At any given moment, because of the conservation of energy, our total energy (kinetic + potential) would always be the same (KE1 + PE1 = KE2 + PE2). So through the law of conservation of energy, the potential energy at the top of the mountain (no kinetic energy because we have zero velocity) should equal the kinetic energy (no potential energy because height is zero) I would posses at the bottom if I went straight down the slopes.