mahela007

But Bignose says that there are momentum sinks.(Thanks for your explanation on reference frame) In that case how will momentum be conserved? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI think I'd find it easier to understand via an example: Imagine an elastic collision between a hard metal ball and a ball of putty. On collision some of the kinetic energy of the metal ball would be used to deform the putty. So how could the momentum be conserved if some energy was lost in other forms?

Thank you for your reply. As I'm still at somewhat of an introductory level of studying physics I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the terms you have used. For example I don't know what the following mean. Reference frame Observer dependent Source and Sinks

The kinetic energy that an object possesses is dependant on it's speed according to the equation E=1/2 mv^2 So wouldn't a loss of energy mean that the object has slowed down and lost some momentum?