Change in Momentum of a Hockey Puck

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Homework Help Overview

The problem involves a hockey player hitting a puck and seeks to determine the change in momentum given the mass of the puck and the time the force is applied. The subject area is physics, specifically focusing on concepts of momentum and impulse.

Discussion Character

  • Assumption checking, Problem interpretation

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants discuss the necessity of additional information, such as the force or change in velocity, to solve the problem. There are attempts to clarify the relationships between momentum, force, and time, with some expressing uncertainty about the completeness of the problem statement.

Discussion Status

The discussion is ongoing, with participants exploring the implications of missing information. Some have suggested expressing the change in momentum in terms of the unknown variables, indicating a productive direction without reaching a consensus on a solution.

Contextual Notes

There is a mention of the teacher potentially providing faulty problems, which raises questions about the validity of the problem as presented. Participants are operating under the constraints of a homework assignment, which may limit the information available to them.

Wyatt Lowery
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Homework Statement


A hockey player hits a slap shot, exerting a constant force on a 3.06 kg puck for 0.06 seconds. What is the change in momentum of the puck?

Homework Equations



Impulse = Mass x (Change in velocity) = Force x time

(I think that’s all needed? Most likely missing one.)

The Attempt at a Solution


I’ve tried everything in my arsenal. I’ve communicated with my peers, and my teacher refuses to help because it is a part of the review for our final.

I’ve reduced the problem down to a series of relationships between acceleration, velocity, force, but still there are two unknowns in every equations and no way to solve from my perspective. I speculate that I’m either missing something in the problem or am at loss of an essential equation. All help is appreciated. (My teacher has been known to make faulty problems, it is a possibility that this cannot be solved.)
 
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As far as I believe at least one Information is missing.

Force is the change of momentum in time. So you have the time and the mass of the puck, but the velocity or force is missing to determine anything further.

Maybe someone has a better solution.
 
Wyatt Lowery said:
I think that’s all needed?

As far as I can see, it is.

Wyatt Lowery said:
My teacher has been known to make faulty problems, it is a possibility that this cannot be solved.

That would be my suspicion based on the problem description in your OP. As far as I can see, @The_Sadist is correct that you need either the force or the change in velocity to get a final answer. The best you can do with the information given would be to express the change in momentum in terms of either the force or the change in velocity.
 
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PeterDonis said:
As far as I can see, it is.
That would be my suspicion based on the problem description in your OP. As far as I can see, @The_Sadist is correct that you need either the force or the change in velocity to get a final answer. The best you can do with the information given would be to express the change in momentum in terms of either the force or the change in velocity.
Thank you. This has been killing me. I’ll express it as a proportion/relation.
 

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