What is momentum?

Momentum is like when you're on a swing, the more you go back and forth, the harder it feels to stop.

Imagine you’re playing with your favorite toy car. If it’s just sitting there, it doesn’t take much effort to move it. But if it's already rolling fast down the street, it takes a lot more force to make it stop. That’s momentum, it’s how hard it is to slow something down or speed it up.

Momentum depends on two things: how heavy something is and how fast it’s moving.

• If you have a light toy car, it doesn’t take much to get it going or stop it.
• But if you have a big, heavy truck, even going slowly, it takes a lot of effort to make it stop, that's because it has more momentum.

Think of it like when you're on a slide. The faster you go down, the harder it is to stop suddenly at the bottom. That’s momentum in action! Momentum is like when you're on a swing, the more you go back and forth, the harder it feels to stop.

Imagine you’re playing with your favorite toy car. If it’s just sitting there, it doesn’t take much effort to move it. But if it's already rolling fast down the street, it takes a lot more force to make it stop. That’s momentum, it’s how hard it is to slow something down or speed it up.