Question

What are elastic and in-elastic collisions? had how do you tell if a collision is one or the other?

Answer 1

elastic collisions occur when there's no kinetic energy loss. In inelastic collisions, some kinetic energy transformed into heat or sound or other type of energy. You can measure speed of each object in collisions and their mass to know whether it's elastic or not.

Answer 2

a.) you are told
b.) one of the objects is deformed
c.) kinetic energy is not conserved

Answer 3

elastic collision - objects collide without being permanently deformed and without generating heat. they just bounce off.
inelastic collision - colliding objects become distorted. objects become tangled or coupled together.