is energy transferred during collision
2. there is more to the energy transfer in a collision than the mass and velocty, otherwise a head-on collision of 1kg of lead and 1kg stuffed elephant would behave the same as 1kg of steel hitting 1kg of stone, head on, same speeds.
We know that kinetic energy is not conserved in an inelastic collision, and how much of the kinetic energy is lost we can find it out through applying conservation of momentum. But one thing that I don't understand is how does the system know exactly how much kinetic energy to lose?