Conservation of Momentum in Explosions

Explosions are situations in which two objects begin at rest with respect to one another, and are projected apart through the action of equal and opposite forces.  Since the forces are of equal magnitude and act over equal intervals of time, the impulse on each object is the same and therefore each object gains the same magnitude momentum after the explosion.  To analyze these situations, we set the magnitude of the momentum of one object to equal the magnitude of the momentum of the other object and solve for our unknown variable.

For more information on this topic view the video clip Conservation of Momentum from Discovery Education™ streaming.