The measure of the difficulty to bring a moving body to a halt.
The momentum of the body is equal to the product of the mass and the velocity of that body:
p =
mv (where p and v are vectors)
Where (SI units used):
p is the momentum in
Newton seconds (
Ns or sec Newtons,
sN)
m is the mass of the body in kilograms (
kg)
v is the velocity of the body in metres per second (ms^
-1)
1. A truck coming towards you at 100
ms^
-1 will be hard to stop with your body because it has a lot of momentum.
2. A
tenis ball thrown at you at .5 ms^-1 will be pretty easy to stop with your face because it has little momentum.
