Momentum and Kinetic Energy

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
WHY MOMENTUM IS A VECTOR AND KINETIC ENERGY IS SCALAR QUANTITY ALTHOUGH BOTH ARE THE PRODUCT OF MASS AND VELOCITY?
- SANA ULLAH (age 26)
SWAT PAKISTAN
A:
Actually kinetic energy is a product of mass and the SQUARE of the velocity. The standard (dot-product) square of a vector is just a scalar.

mike w

(published on 10/22/2007)