PHYSICS

When a car hits a barrier, your body does not care only about speed. It cares about how quickly momentum is ripped away. Impulse is the physics name for that shove spread over time. Impulse equals average force multiplied by the time the force acts: J = F × Δt. Units are newton-seconds, the same as a momentum change. A punch, a tackle, and a crash all deliver impulse. The harder the push and the longer it lasts, the bigger the impulse. Engineers who design cars and sports gear think about impulse every day because it tells them how violently an object is stopped or started.