Abstract
An air track experiment is described and analyzed. This experiment involves a massive particle incident on a fixed wall with a light particle trapped in between. The interaction of the massive particle with the wall is mediated by the multiple bouncing of the light particle between the two. Both elastic and inelastic bouncing are studied. It is shown that the motion of the system point in the velocity space of the two particles provides a convenient graphical representation of this process—a process in which the total momentum of the system is not conserved. A mathematical transformation in the velocity space results in simple formulas for the velocities of the two particles at any stage of the multiple-bounce interaction. The graphical method is supplemented in the inelastic case by a formalism which describes the interaction via two noncommuting scattering matrices which operate on a system state vector.
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