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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2026
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No Stupid Questions
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If they hit perfect and don't shatter, the energy has to go somewhere. Wouldn't they act like billiard balls and bounce back in the opposite angle? In a perfect elastic conditions, of course.
Hmmm... you're right. I was originally thinking of it as two force vectors adding together to create a zero sum, but that wouldn't be right because they're two separate objects (if the cannonballs were perfectly adhesive to one another, then they'd create a single object and do what I originally thought).
In perfect conditions they'd each transfer their kinetic energy into the other and they'd fly apart at the same velocity. So yeah, very much like billiard balls. Good intuition.
I'm an electrical engineer, I only took static mechanics in school.
Now you've got me wondering about a perfect adhesive reaction and where the energy goes. The velocity is zero (before gravity begins to pull down), so I guess they both heat to mv^2 then however you convert that to actual heat. (I haven't had a physics class in a very long time)