Learn about the incomplete definition of momentum and its modification in the theory of relativity

I bet you learned in school that momentum is mass times velocity. I sure did. However, for objects moving close to the speed of light, like the particles in the Large Hadron Collider or light itself, this equation is no longer accurate. Instead, we use these equations that I talked about in more detail in the video E equals mc squared is incomplete.

If you take them as your starting points and solve for momentum, you'll find that objects with mass have momentum equal to their mass times velocity divided by the square root of 1 minus velocity squared over the speed of light squared. That square root part doesn't make much of a difference if your velocity is small compared to the speed of light, because then v over c is really small, and 1 minus something small is basically just 1. So momentum, p, is pretty much just mv divided by 1, which is mv.

Which is why you learned in school that momentum is mass times velocity. That's also what physicists thought before 1905, but now they know that's not quite true. And so do you.