Abstract.Though elastic collision increase a system's entropy and disturb the order, inelastic collision dissipates the internal energy to environment as heat. As a result, inelastic system tends to make order automatically. The prototipical example of the phenomenon is found by the author's group in late 1980s, and named ``inelastic collapse" by McNamara and Young. This tendency is found by computer simulation through our study for planetary ringlet formation. And the author also reports the new phenomenon that inelastic particls in a spherical shell makes a ring on the equator.

Received: August 17, 2007

AMS Subject Classification: 70F10

Key Words and Phrases: inelastic collapse, ringlet formation, computer simulation

Source: International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
ISSN: 1311-8080
Year: 2008
Volume: 42
Issue: 3