In a perfectly inelastic collision, what happens to kinetic energy?

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Multiple Choice

In a perfectly inelastic collision, what happens to kinetic energy?

Explanation:
In a collision, momentum is conserved, but kinetic energy isn’t always. In a perfectly inelastic collision, the objects stick together and move as one afterward. The final kinetic energy is based on this common velocity and is smaller than the initial kinetic energy, because some of that energy is transformed into internal energy of the bodies—heating, deformation, and sometimes sound. Energy is still conserved overall, but the portion that was kinetic is reduced and converted to other forms. So the kinetic energy is lost (transformed into internal energy and other non-kinetic forms).

In a collision, momentum is conserved, but kinetic energy isn’t always. In a perfectly inelastic collision, the objects stick together and move as one afterward. The final kinetic energy is based on this common velocity and is smaller than the initial kinetic energy, because some of that energy is transformed into internal energy of the bodies—heating, deformation, and sometimes sound. Energy is still conserved overall, but the portion that was kinetic is reduced and converted to other forms. So the kinetic energy is lost (transformed into internal energy and other non-kinetic forms).

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