Find the momentum and kinetic energy of a moving mass.
Momentum is the product of an object's mass and velocity, p = mv. It is a vector, pointing in the direction of motion, and measures how hard it is to stop a moving object. A slow-moving truck and a fast bullet can carry similar momentum despite very different masses and speeds.
In any isolated system, the total momentum is conserved: it stays constant unless an external force acts. This principle governs collisions, explosions, and rocket propulsion. This calculator returns both the momentum and the kinetic energy, ½mv², so you can compare the two ways of describing a moving object.
Total momentum is conserved whenever no net external force acts on the system. Internal forces between colliding objects cancel out.
Momentum is a vector that scales with velocity; kinetic energy is a scalar that scales with velocity squared. Both are conserved in elastic collisions, but only momentum is conserved in inelastic ones.