Bumpy, Bumpy Buses

This past Friday was one of the best we'll have all year: it was CLASS DAY! We had no homework due that day, and we got to go to the beach, eat food, and come back to school early. And to get to the beach, we fit the entire grade into a few buses, which took the Juniors, and few Seniors not on Moloka'i, to Bellows. However, these buses did not provide the smoothest rides one can find these days. We felt every single bump, with the large bumps especially noticable. In fact, these large bumps demonstrate........(drumroll....)... Physics!!! And the most noticable form of Physics on these buses was the transfered momentum at every large bump. Every time we went over an extremely large one, the bus would gain y velocity. As this occured, we, the passengers who were sitting on the bus's seats, would get a vertical jolt as the bus's seats collided with us, transfering some momentum to us. Since I am much less massive than the bus, I would continue in the same direction as the bus for the brief moment before gravity brought the bus back down to the ground. Since this would be a relatively elastic collision, the equation for the conservation of kinetic energy would apply, as well as conservation of momentum. The bus would lose very little y velocity to me, whereas I , with my relatively small mass, would gain enough to throw me in the air for a split second before gravity brought me back down. If I knew the amount of time the bus was pushing me into the air and my velocity coming off the seat, I could calculate my impulse (J=F(net)delta t = delta mv), but unfortunately I was too tired to take these measurements. Oh well :-).