Quote: Kosh "Now we're getting into the difficult stuff, and TBH a full discussion of conservation of momentum in open and closed systems is probably way too far OT for this board. Basically the answer is 'yes' but in practical terms the difference would be too small to be observable.'"
Haha, OK I can see it's getting way too complex for others to keep up (hence the sarcastic remarks) so I'll leave it at that. My understanding of it (obviously on a less complicated scale to yours) is that regardless of the sum total of the momentum of the body it would go at the same rate after release due to constant velocity and not because of the weight (so if fatty Murrell passed a ball and skinny Hall passed a ball and were both running at the same speed, the ball would travel forward at the same rate regardless of Murrell's obesity). If there's more to it than that, it's never been explained to me which is why I wanted to know. Happy to be proven wrong as long as I know why!