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The article does not mention Ns (Newton Seconds), which I believe is the more commonly used unit for impulse to distinguish between Momentum and impulse. It may be wise to state that Ns= kg m/s²x s = kg m/s, so while they are the same unit, Ns is used more frequently.
Wheatleya 19:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
First of all, impulse is not defined as change in momentum. (It's equal to the change in momentum of an object, but that's not the definition.) I put the definition first. Also, you don't say "an impulse..." any more than you say "a momentum". Impulse is a quantity. To say "an impulse is a change in momentum" makes it sound like impulse is an event, which is not correct, at least not in this context. Pfalstad 05:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course it's fine to say "an impulse", it's just not how the word is used in physics. Saying "apply an impulse" is using the word in a nontechnical sense. Unless you can provide a source (physics text) that uses the term in that way. Pfalstad 03:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I think this page should be a disambig page, and be moved to Impulse (physics). There are a bunch of other definitions of impulse, and impulse in physics isn't even a decently large concept. Any takers? Fresheneesz 07:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed the merge tag, its old. And on the talk page for momentum - we are comming to the conclusion that we should move all that info here for good. Fresheneesz 08:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
An article of this name was created today with a definition of impulse = rate of change of acceleration, instead of impulse = change in momentum. A merge was proposed, which I've boldy edited into a redirect to this article. I've saved the ext refs which confirmed the correct definition of impulse - as in this article as of now. Ian Cairns 00:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I know this is really trivial, but shouldn't J be used to stand for impulse? that's what's used in my textbook Physics for scientists and Engineers with modern Physics, Douglas C Giancoli, Prentice Hall, Third edition (in case someone wants to look it up). 'I' stands for electric current, not impulse. (ever heard p=iv? that means power=current times voltage, not impulse times voltage). I think you are right when you say I stands for electric current but you can also use 'Imp' to mean impulse if you don't mind — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaamuli vitus ( talk • contribs) 06:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
are you sure that "dt is an infinitesimal amount of time"?
that is an integration statement, and "dt" would usually mean "with respect to t"
Right now it claims that a N-m = Hy (Huygens), which is a unit name I have never heard of. Upon research I haven't found it used anywhere else on the internet or wikipedia. Moreover, the SI system doesn't reference it at all. If this is a real name of a unit please cite it, otherwise I propose that we remove it, as it is quite confusing. Wizard191 16:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I looked everywhere for a unit of Hy. It sounds like a neat addition to physics, and one that the people who head up the SI units should add, unfortunately it is by no means official or correct. I'll continue to look out for it, but I'm removing it until it can be verified. 10 months of an unvalidated claim is quite long enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.18.156 ( talk) 05:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Adding to my comment above, the Hy is in fact a fictitious unit of momentum/impulse. It does not appear on the BIPM's website of offical SI units, and therefore it is false and should not appear on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.147.117 ( talk) 17:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Often one hears the term "Force of Impact". Say you can calculate/estimate the impulse of an impact but you want to estimate (perhaps) the maximum force of collision, or possibly the average force of the collision, or maybe even the average force for the top 25% of the most forceful moments of the collision. Is any of that information relevant? I'm interested in the relationship between the fracture strength of materials and "how forceful" an impact an object of said material can take. It would seem that Impulse is a desired quantity to know, but what else should I know? IIRC to get average force, I just divide divide the impulse over the time it takes for the the impact to take place. But how would one estimate this time? How would I estimate the average force imparted by one billiard ball on another over the lifespan of the impact, which I cannot estimate with the unaided eye. How high could I drop a billiard ball in a frictionless environment from a building before cracks of a certain size develop on its surface (I.E. the force imparted exceeds locally the fracture strength of the material the billiard ball is made from but it does not fracture the ball). How do I estimate how much effect the ground chosen for the ball to impact has on this? If the fracture strength of the ground is quite low, energy from the impact will be dissipated by "flakes" of the ground being thrown outward, and it would seem that also needs to be taken into consideration.
It seems methods to estimate information is relevant and related to the article, but no description or references are included in the article. What quantities are these and how are they measured or estimated?
I'm not a physicist and I wouldn't even know where to begin to look (other than, say, research into stuff like bicycle helmets).
Root4(one) 17:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
This article received several major revisions:
The general definition of impulse was moved to the beginning of the article, and the special case which once appeared there was moved lower down.
Reference to the "Theorem of Impulse and Momentum" was removed, since it is trivial (a three-line derivation appears in the very article) and does not even appear by that name in any of the mechanics textbooks I have: Kleppner & Kolenkow, Tipler, Young & Freedman, and Marion & Thornton. Mention of Newton's Second Law now precedes the derivation.
I added the fact that the special case given relies on both force and mass being constant; previously, only force was mentioned as constant. A common example in which the mass of a system is not constant is the problem of a rail car from which sand is leaking.
Finally, there were minor stylistic changes.
Anarchic Fox 20:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Who decided that Impulse defaults to the mechanical definition? Perhaps most people would be looking for the psychological definition? -- Nathanael Bar-Aur L. ( talk) 04:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
I have tagged this article as having insufficient context for readers with less understanding of the underlying physics and math involved in impulse, momentum and velocity. I'm not suggesting that the article needs to be "dumbed down", but if there's someone out there with good knowledge on this subject, I think this article could really use a well-written Introduction that explains Impulse in reasonably understandable prose, which could then lead in to the more technical explanation already contained within the article. Good examples of this would be the pages for Momentum and Velocity, which are both related to this article, and explain their concepts a bit better before jumping right in to the mathematical and theoretical explanations. TrufflesTheLamb ( talk) 01:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Moving this page is a drastic action that I don't necessarily agree with. Can we please get this reverted and discuss this first? I don't see how this isn't the most prominent target. Wizard191 ( talk) 22:23, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. I've never heard the term Mechanical Impulse. Greglocock ( talk) 00:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
After the "therefore" statement in the "Mathematical derivation in the case of an object of constant mass" section, a misuse of notation is used to seemingly "cancel out" the 'dt's in the integration expression,. This should instead be a statement of the Second Fundamental Theorem of Calculus to derive the impulse-momentum theorem. While the "cancelling" is a subtlety that provides the correct results, it could mislead readers. A change could look like
The "Examples of impulse" section does not appear to add any useful information to the article, and is completely original research. I suggest that it be removed or reworked into something more concrete. - HectorAE ( talk) 18:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
it's confusing to distinguish. for example, in german you don't distinguish between the two at all. it's the same (both are called "Impuls"). a moving body has a momentum. if you apply a force to it over a certain amount of time, you change its momentum (thus momentum has unit Ns = Hy, force times time). it's such a basic thing that it's unnecessary to make a big fuss about distinguishing between this. it doesn't help. the unit Ns = Hy is useless / never needed, unless it's the first lecture of mechanic and you want to work a bit with those basic expressions. you never actually calculate a momentum of a moving body and compare "oh look, this body has impulse 3 Ns", rather the velocity or relations between the momenta of two colliding bodies. put the stuff in this article in the momentum-article and delete this one, it's nonsense. 92.196.80.110 ( talk) 21:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
and if you read the article carefully, you see that there is no content other than stating over and over that impulse and momentum are the same thing. it's artificial inflation of a trivial fact to article size. 92.196.80.110 ( talk) 00:23, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Dear main authors; I believe the IUPAP is the authorative reference for notation in physics, not textbooks. In their RED BOOK (or SUNAMCO RED BOOK, it can be found with google), 1987 revision, 2010 reprint, they give only "I" for impulse (p. 28). The german Wikipedia accordingly uses "I". I suggest to change the "J" to "I" in the article. Regards: Herbmuell ( talk) 00:57, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
"Happy" and "sad" balls, as referenced in the video, are not standard terminology, and should instead be phrased in terms of elasticity. Or, since elasticity is not discussed elsewhere in the article, nor fundamentally relevant to impulse, this could be removed entirely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:482:8003:3468:811B:2E0B:C0BA:89DB ( talk) 03:49, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
First paragraph says Impulse is Newton meter sec is NM/sec. What? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Longinus876 ( talk • contribs) 22:28, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
This article on Impulse is a technical article so it should be consistent with the guidelines at WP:Make technical articles understandable. Unfortunately, the article lead, in particular, does not fare well when assessed alongside the guidelines. I propose to write an improved lead.
My major objection in the lead is the first sentence which says In classical mechanics, Impulse is the integral of a force, F, over the time interval, t for which it acts.
This sentence falsely implies that an understanding of the concept of impulse is only available to readers who already have an understanding of vector calculus! The only pre-requisite for understanding impulse is that the reader has a rudimentary understanding of momentum. Impulse in its basic form is simply the difference between the initial momentum of an object, and its momentum at some later time. (In the case of rectilinear motion, both momentum and impulse can be treated as scalar quantities. It is that simple.)
Wikipedia guidelines show that this first sentence in the lead is unnecessarily complicated. For example:
The first sentence ... should be in plain English.
Make the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible. In general, ... but avoid difficult-to-understand ... mathematical equations and formulas.
Terminology in the lead section should be understandable on sight to general readers ...
I intend to amend the article so that impulse is explained in three steps:
Any comments will be welcome. Dolphin ( t) 12:32, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article has been
mentioned by a media organization:
|
The article does not mention Ns (Newton Seconds), which I believe is the more commonly used unit for impulse to distinguish between Momentum and impulse. It may be wise to state that Ns= kg m/s²x s = kg m/s, so while they are the same unit, Ns is used more frequently.
Wheatleya 19:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
First of all, impulse is not defined as change in momentum. (It's equal to the change in momentum of an object, but that's not the definition.) I put the definition first. Also, you don't say "an impulse..." any more than you say "a momentum". Impulse is a quantity. To say "an impulse is a change in momentum" makes it sound like impulse is an event, which is not correct, at least not in this context. Pfalstad 05:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course it's fine to say "an impulse", it's just not how the word is used in physics. Saying "apply an impulse" is using the word in a nontechnical sense. Unless you can provide a source (physics text) that uses the term in that way. Pfalstad 03:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I think this page should be a disambig page, and be moved to Impulse (physics). There are a bunch of other definitions of impulse, and impulse in physics isn't even a decently large concept. Any takers? Fresheneesz 07:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed the merge tag, its old. And on the talk page for momentum - we are comming to the conclusion that we should move all that info here for good. Fresheneesz 08:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
An article of this name was created today with a definition of impulse = rate of change of acceleration, instead of impulse = change in momentum. A merge was proposed, which I've boldy edited into a redirect to this article. I've saved the ext refs which confirmed the correct definition of impulse - as in this article as of now. Ian Cairns 00:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I know this is really trivial, but shouldn't J be used to stand for impulse? that's what's used in my textbook Physics for scientists and Engineers with modern Physics, Douglas C Giancoli, Prentice Hall, Third edition (in case someone wants to look it up). 'I' stands for electric current, not impulse. (ever heard p=iv? that means power=current times voltage, not impulse times voltage). I think you are right when you say I stands for electric current but you can also use 'Imp' to mean impulse if you don't mind — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaamuli vitus ( talk • contribs) 06:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
are you sure that "dt is an infinitesimal amount of time"?
that is an integration statement, and "dt" would usually mean "with respect to t"
Right now it claims that a N-m = Hy (Huygens), which is a unit name I have never heard of. Upon research I haven't found it used anywhere else on the internet or wikipedia. Moreover, the SI system doesn't reference it at all. If this is a real name of a unit please cite it, otherwise I propose that we remove it, as it is quite confusing. Wizard191 16:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I looked everywhere for a unit of Hy. It sounds like a neat addition to physics, and one that the people who head up the SI units should add, unfortunately it is by no means official or correct. I'll continue to look out for it, but I'm removing it until it can be verified. 10 months of an unvalidated claim is quite long enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.18.156 ( talk) 05:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Adding to my comment above, the Hy is in fact a fictitious unit of momentum/impulse. It does not appear on the BIPM's website of offical SI units, and therefore it is false and should not appear on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.147.117 ( talk) 17:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Often one hears the term "Force of Impact". Say you can calculate/estimate the impulse of an impact but you want to estimate (perhaps) the maximum force of collision, or possibly the average force of the collision, or maybe even the average force for the top 25% of the most forceful moments of the collision. Is any of that information relevant? I'm interested in the relationship between the fracture strength of materials and "how forceful" an impact an object of said material can take. It would seem that Impulse is a desired quantity to know, but what else should I know? IIRC to get average force, I just divide divide the impulse over the time it takes for the the impact to take place. But how would one estimate this time? How would I estimate the average force imparted by one billiard ball on another over the lifespan of the impact, which I cannot estimate with the unaided eye. How high could I drop a billiard ball in a frictionless environment from a building before cracks of a certain size develop on its surface (I.E. the force imparted exceeds locally the fracture strength of the material the billiard ball is made from but it does not fracture the ball). How do I estimate how much effect the ground chosen for the ball to impact has on this? If the fracture strength of the ground is quite low, energy from the impact will be dissipated by "flakes" of the ground being thrown outward, and it would seem that also needs to be taken into consideration.
It seems methods to estimate information is relevant and related to the article, but no description or references are included in the article. What quantities are these and how are they measured or estimated?
I'm not a physicist and I wouldn't even know where to begin to look (other than, say, research into stuff like bicycle helmets).
Root4(one) 17:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
This article received several major revisions:
The general definition of impulse was moved to the beginning of the article, and the special case which once appeared there was moved lower down.
Reference to the "Theorem of Impulse and Momentum" was removed, since it is trivial (a three-line derivation appears in the very article) and does not even appear by that name in any of the mechanics textbooks I have: Kleppner & Kolenkow, Tipler, Young & Freedman, and Marion & Thornton. Mention of Newton's Second Law now precedes the derivation.
I added the fact that the special case given relies on both force and mass being constant; previously, only force was mentioned as constant. A common example in which the mass of a system is not constant is the problem of a rail car from which sand is leaking.
Finally, there were minor stylistic changes.
Anarchic Fox 20:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Who decided that Impulse defaults to the mechanical definition? Perhaps most people would be looking for the psychological definition? -- Nathanael Bar-Aur L. ( talk) 04:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
I have tagged this article as having insufficient context for readers with less understanding of the underlying physics and math involved in impulse, momentum and velocity. I'm not suggesting that the article needs to be "dumbed down", but if there's someone out there with good knowledge on this subject, I think this article could really use a well-written Introduction that explains Impulse in reasonably understandable prose, which could then lead in to the more technical explanation already contained within the article. Good examples of this would be the pages for Momentum and Velocity, which are both related to this article, and explain their concepts a bit better before jumping right in to the mathematical and theoretical explanations. TrufflesTheLamb ( talk) 01:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Moving this page is a drastic action that I don't necessarily agree with. Can we please get this reverted and discuss this first? I don't see how this isn't the most prominent target. Wizard191 ( talk) 22:23, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. I've never heard the term Mechanical Impulse. Greglocock ( talk) 00:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
After the "therefore" statement in the "Mathematical derivation in the case of an object of constant mass" section, a misuse of notation is used to seemingly "cancel out" the 'dt's in the integration expression,. This should instead be a statement of the Second Fundamental Theorem of Calculus to derive the impulse-momentum theorem. While the "cancelling" is a subtlety that provides the correct results, it could mislead readers. A change could look like
The "Examples of impulse" section does not appear to add any useful information to the article, and is completely original research. I suggest that it be removed or reworked into something more concrete. - HectorAE ( talk) 18:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
it's confusing to distinguish. for example, in german you don't distinguish between the two at all. it's the same (both are called "Impuls"). a moving body has a momentum. if you apply a force to it over a certain amount of time, you change its momentum (thus momentum has unit Ns = Hy, force times time). it's such a basic thing that it's unnecessary to make a big fuss about distinguishing between this. it doesn't help. the unit Ns = Hy is useless / never needed, unless it's the first lecture of mechanic and you want to work a bit with those basic expressions. you never actually calculate a momentum of a moving body and compare "oh look, this body has impulse 3 Ns", rather the velocity or relations between the momenta of two colliding bodies. put the stuff in this article in the momentum-article and delete this one, it's nonsense. 92.196.80.110 ( talk) 21:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
and if you read the article carefully, you see that there is no content other than stating over and over that impulse and momentum are the same thing. it's artificial inflation of a trivial fact to article size. 92.196.80.110 ( talk) 00:23, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Dear main authors; I believe the IUPAP is the authorative reference for notation in physics, not textbooks. In their RED BOOK (or SUNAMCO RED BOOK, it can be found with google), 1987 revision, 2010 reprint, they give only "I" for impulse (p. 28). The german Wikipedia accordingly uses "I". I suggest to change the "J" to "I" in the article. Regards: Herbmuell ( talk) 00:57, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
"Happy" and "sad" balls, as referenced in the video, are not standard terminology, and should instead be phrased in terms of elasticity. Or, since elasticity is not discussed elsewhere in the article, nor fundamentally relevant to impulse, this could be removed entirely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:482:8003:3468:811B:2E0B:C0BA:89DB ( talk) 03:49, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
First paragraph says Impulse is Newton meter sec is NM/sec. What? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Longinus876 ( talk • contribs) 22:28, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
This article on Impulse is a technical article so it should be consistent with the guidelines at WP:Make technical articles understandable. Unfortunately, the article lead, in particular, does not fare well when assessed alongside the guidelines. I propose to write an improved lead.
My major objection in the lead is the first sentence which says In classical mechanics, Impulse is the integral of a force, F, over the time interval, t for which it acts.
This sentence falsely implies that an understanding of the concept of impulse is only available to readers who already have an understanding of vector calculus! The only pre-requisite for understanding impulse is that the reader has a rudimentary understanding of momentum. Impulse in its basic form is simply the difference between the initial momentum of an object, and its momentum at some later time. (In the case of rectilinear motion, both momentum and impulse can be treated as scalar quantities. It is that simple.)
Wikipedia guidelines show that this first sentence in the lead is unnecessarily complicated. For example:
The first sentence ... should be in plain English.
Make the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible. In general, ... but avoid difficult-to-understand ... mathematical equations and formulas.
Terminology in the lead section should be understandable on sight to general readers ...
I intend to amend the article so that impulse is explained in three steps:
Any comments will be welcome. Dolphin ( t) 12:32, 9 July 2023 (UTC)