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Lesson: Chapter 4 — Newton's Laws of Motion

4.2. Momentum 1 of 7

Question 1

What does the difficulty of stopping a moving object depend on?

The right answer is the one marked above.

Both mass and velocity. Momentum is the measure of that difficulty.

A shot put is hard to catch when it is thrown, but not when it is handed to you — same mass, different velocity. A bullet has a tiny mass, yet once fired from a gun, stopping it is not worth thinking about.

So looking at either one alone is not enough. Only when both are large does it become dangerous.

Answer the question to continue.