Question

In order to catch a ball, a baseball player naturally moves his or her hand backward in the direction of the ball's motion once the ball contacts the hand. This habit causes the force of impact on the players hand to be reduced principally; because ___.

• A. the resulting impact velocity is decreased
• B. the momentum change is decreased
• C. time of impact is increased
• D. time of impact is decreased

Answer 1

The correct option is C

time of impact is increased

Increasing the time over which the ball's momentum is brought to 0 will decrease the force required to stop it. Suppose a ball is coming at you with 100-units of momentum. An impulse of 100-units would be required to stop the ball. Regardless of how the impulse is accomplished (big F, little t or little F, big t), there must be 100-units of it