I guess you mean that my use of the word "many" means that there are
cases where the opposite holds?

Well, possibly. In fact, it would be possible to construct a device
which had the exact force profile of a perfect spring but then at the
very bottom, where the spring began to accelerate the object back up
again, this device could just start providing an output of 0 force. In
other words, it could synthesize a "fake" spring which was completely
elastic right up until the object comes to a stop and then it wastes
all the stored energy so that no bounce happens. However, that doesn't
change the fact that this does not happen with most materials.

Sean


On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:26 AM, Marechiare <marechiare@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> If that is true then the "opposite " statement is true as well.
>> Hmmm. Can you please explain? I'm not sure what you mean.
>
>>>> However, in many (most?) cases, the inelastic
>>>> collision will take longer to slow the object than
>>>> a pure spring would (when the constant is the
>>>> distance required to stop the object).
>
> If the above is true then the next is true as well:
>
> ***
> However, in many (most?) cases, a pure
> spring will take longer to slow the object than
> the inelastic collision would (when the constant
> is the distance required to stop the object).
> ***
>
> That is, your statement is equivalent to:
>
> ***
> the inelastic collision may or may not take longer
> to slow the object than a pure spring would (when the
> constant is the distance required to stop the object).
> ***
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