_ is to "momentum" as "speed" is to "velocity"? [closed]

Do we have a single word for the magnitude of momentum? If not, would there be a way to construct one from the root of the word momentum? It's not coming up in my thesaurus searches, and I've never heard of it, but I don't think it's actually that uncommon a thing to have to describe, so it seems surprising it doesn't have it's own term.

When we write it down it is "|p|", but it would be very useful to have a terse way to specify this verbally. This is often just referred to as "momentum", or if there is a need to distinguish "abs-momentum" or "magnitude of momentum", but does a single word representation exist?

Sample sentence; "The _ of the particle has a lower statistical error than its momentum."

Solution 1:

In layman's terms (i.e., English in general), "speed" and "velocity" are two words that mean the exact same thing. Only in physics do they have differing meanings, the latter, "velocity," referring to speed and direction. Moreover, momentum itself is a vector measurement in physics.

If what you're looking for is a word used for momentum that is measured or quantified, that word is "momentum," and in physics, momentum already has direction, indicating magnitude (i.e., size) and direction (zonalandeducation.com/mstm/physics/mechanics/momentum/…).

Therefore, the proper analogy for your question would be, "Magnitude is to momentum as speed is to velocity," since magnitude is momentum without direction. But, again, that's only in the technical jargon of physics. You wouldn't be able to rely on any such nuance being inferred outside of talking to physicists or students of physics.