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Relation between momentum and kinetic energy

Sometimes it's desirable to express the kinetic energy of a particle in terms of the momentum. That's easy enough. Since tex2html_wrap_inline1089 and the kinetic energy tex2html_wrap_inline1091 so

equation37

Note that if a massive particle and a light particle have the same momentum, the light one will have a lot more kinetic energy. If a light particle and a heavy one have the same velocity, the heavy one has more kinetic energy.



Joshua Deutsch
Fri Jan 17 12:19:41 PST 1997