My bad, that's what I meant. I meant it as in if the wall had a force of 3 and the time was 2, and the haystack had a force of 2, but a time of 3, then the impulse would be 6 for both, making the impulses equal.
I think I better understand. While the impulses would be the same, the amount of force exerted to stop the car is equally proportional to the amount of time it took the car to stop. Therefore, when multiplied together, they come to the same amount of impulse, even though they are different surfaces?
That was the problem that I had. However, my teacher told me to envision a situation where they had the same stopping time, even though the surfaces are different. I personally feel that she butchered this question.
There were no equations because they were conceptual multiple choice. We were talking about the change in momentum and impulse and whether they were the same.
My classmates and I were discussing the impulse-momentum theorem and how they correlate.
The example problem consisted of two cars running into solid surfaces at the same velocity. One car ran into a brick wall and came to a complete stop. The other car ran into a haystack and came to a...