Talk:Deflection (physics)

Sphere/plane collisions

The article notes that there should be a citation for this claim:

"In such collisions involving a sphere and a plane, the collision angle formed with the surface normal (the incidental angle α) must equal the bounce angle (the accidental angle β), α = β."

That would be nice, but it would also be nice for the article to include a hint about how this fact can be derived -- or at least what particular principles it can be derived from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.165.90.180 (talk) 17:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even believe that the claim is generally true. It may be true for a frictionless collision, but a typical ball bouncing from a typical wall will in fact convert some of its linear momentum into angular momentum (ie. it will start to spin, if it did not spin before). As a result, the bounce angle will be different from the collision angle. It is very easy to observe this effect, but I don't know if it is easy to find a reference. --Jmk (talk) 08:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This document (esp. slides 6–7) explains some of the frictional effects of bouncing balls, but a more scientific reference (eg. a textbook or an article) would be welcome. --Jmk (talk) 08:50, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For a frictionless, elastic collision it should be relatively straightforward to derive. After an elastic collision with a wall of infinite mass, the ball will have the same speed as before the collision. Assuming that the wall exerts only a normal force on the ball, the components of the velocity parallel to the wall are unchanged. Combining these we get the desired angular result. --Jmk (talk) 12:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Magnetic deflection redirects here, could we add more info?

That's it, that's all I have to say JGHFunRun (talk) 04:49, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]