I asked myself this same question today in class. Well, answered the question "What is the symbol for momentum?" with p but wasn't heard so...
Anyways! I wondered why p stood for momentum. Mass obviously already takes M but why p? Momentum doesn't even have a p in it! One answer I found online suggested that the p came from the latin word "petere" meaning to go or to rush upon. Not sure how accurate that is but it sure beats the "all the other letters were used" answer.
This is what I discovered: p is used because the word "impetus" formally in place of "momentum" comes from the latin, "petere," to go towards or rush upon..........so therefore we get "p"
ReplyDeleteanother way to look at it is q is used for the reaction and p is the mirror image of q so therefore since "to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," we choose p to go with q
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/In_momentum_calculations_why_does_p_stand_for_momentum#ixzz1T3RDmRdJ