Conservation of Momentum

Like energy, momentum is conserved in physical systems. For example, when two masses collide and recoil from each other, the total momentum after the collision equals that before the collision. Since the momentum is a three-dimensional vector in Euclidean space, momentum conservation provides three simultaneous equations, in general.^B.10

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.