Physics lab today was two air carts bumping into each other and then going in opposite directions. (An elastic collision.) One poor group was having a terrible time with their data. It looked okish, not great. They took it again, same thing. We finally looked at it very closely.
Cart 1 bumped into Cart 2 at time = 0.25sec.
Cart 2 bumped into Cart 1 at time = 0.50 sec.
Hmm, well that isn't ideal. I sent them to work at a different computer, since time travel really messes up conservation of momentum.
(It turns out a computer restart probably would have worked. Why don't I think of that sooner more often???)
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