Originally posted by Mattius_
yes the like charges in the electrical field are responsible for momentum... so momentum is only evident during acceleration...
now when i said that geometrically enhanced bodies would have less momentum, what i meant was that a body that minimuzed the contact in the electrical fields (something with lots of surface area?) it would thus have less momentum because the interference in the electrical field on impact was minimized...
Okay, okay...
I see your problem and its not that hard to understand.
I just don't think anyone here has understood your question, that's all. First some corrections on what you said though...
1) Momentum is not
ONLY evident during acceleration. It is evident, during motion.
(regardless of whether the object accelerates or not)
The like charges between hand and crate are firstly responsible for creating a force on the crate. That force then has the
POTENTIAL to accelerate the crate and if it does accelerate the crate and causes it to move, momentum will be transferred to the crate from the hand.
2) There are like charges on the hand and the crate and there is an electric field between them, but it does not make sense to say
"the like charges in the electrical field"
?? Do you understand now that momentum is evident during motion, not just acceleration?
now...
Keep in mind that the electrical force that a hand will exert on a crate is proportional to 2 things! The one is the size of the hand.
(A greater area of electrons will naturally result in a greater repulsion) The other is the closeness of the electrons in the hand to those in the crate.
(Are you beginning to get the picture of how this fits together?)
If the person pushing the crate had a smaller hand (thus minimising electrical contact between hand and crate), and they were to exert the same force as someone with a larger hand... The crate would experience the same force, only because the samller hand is allowed to move slightly closer to the crate.
Can you see now that the Force a crate experiences is not dependent at all on the size of the hand?? (the geometry of the problem)
Therefore the acceleration, velocity and thus momentum are NOT dependent on the geometry of the problem.
- I hope that helped