duction In the last lab, you were introduced to a conserved quantity, energy. Energy is a scalar quantity - it doesn't depend on direction - and the amount of energy before or after some interaction or process is always conserved. That is, there is as much energy before any event as after, although this energy can change from one form to another (for example, from kinetic to potential). For processes, while the total amount of energy is conserved, some of this energy is transformed into forms that are harder to keep track of. For example, when a child travels down a slide, some of the initial potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, but because some is also converted into heat the final kinetic energy will not equal the initial potential energy. In this lab we will introduce a second conserved quantity, momentum. Momentum is a vector quantity and is equal to the product of an object's mass and its velocity. During a collision, some or all of the momentum from one object may be transferred to another object, but the total of momentum vector will be unchanged or conserved. However, just as with energy, it is possible for momentum to be transferred from objects that we are paying attention to into objects that we are not (i.e., that are not part of our system). So while the total momentum is always conserved, it is possible for the momentum of a group of objects that we are focusing on to change if there is some interaction with objects that are not part of our system. 1.1: Lab Objectives. After completing this lab and the associated homework, you should be ab