Monday, January 18, 2016

homework and exercises - Determine resultant velocity of an elastic particle-particle collision in 3d space



So I have two particles that have collided in 3 dimensional space. I want the particles to rebound off of each other in an elastic manner. How do I determine the resultant velocity vector if I know: Both particles' initial velocity vector, their masses, and their initial position vectors relative to the origin.


I tried to follow the instructions on this website but I am not sure how to make their equations work without polar coordinates / how to translate my data to polar coordinates.


Also, if you answer my question in terms of polar coordinates, can you explain which angle is theta and which is phi? Since there are 2 different conventions, I am not really sure which angle is being referred to in the explanation on the aforementioned website.


EDIT: This isn't for a class. I'm writing a physics engine for a gravity simulation I am making using Unity. I haven't taken kinematics since I was in high school, which is why I am so rusty.




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