What is the product of an object's mass and its velocity?

The product of an object's mass and its velocity is known as momentum. Momentum is a vector quantity, meaning it has both magnitude and direction, and it is calculated using the formula:

[ \text{Momentum} = \text{mass} \times \text{velocity} ]

This relationship indicates that an object will have more momentum if it has a larger mass or is moving at a higher velocity. Momentum plays a crucial role in understanding collisions and interactions in physics since it is conserved in an isolated system, allowing predictions to be made about the motion of objects after they collide.

In contrast, energy refers to the capacity to do work and can be stored in different forms (kinetic, potential, thermal, etc.). Force is the interaction that causes an object to accelerate, defined by Newton's second law as the product of mass and acceleration, while impulse is defined as the change in momentum and can be calculated as the product of force and the time duration over which it acts. Thus, momentum is the specific term that describes the product of mass and velocity.