Impulse on Clay
Purpose
Identical clay balls dropped onto hard and soft surfaces show how impact duration affects peak force. The clay permanently records the deformation, making the impulse-momentum theorem (\(J = F_{avg}\Delta t = \Delta p\)) visually concrete: same momentum change, different forces.
Figure 1:
Two equal-mass clay balls before dropping. After impact, the ball hitting the hard floor shows a wider, flatter deformation than the one landing on foam.