system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 : Why is Kinetic Energy conserved in elastic collisions but not conserved in Inelastic collisions?

Shouldn't both collisions produce the same results?
gpt
Inelastic means something is being deformed and not immediately bouncing back into it's original form. That absorbs some energy in the form of internal friction (I.E. it turns to heat)

Imagine two cars crashing into each other. They both went 20m/s and afterwards they are both standing. The energy all got absorbed by the material.

Overall energy is conserved. It isn't all kinetic energy anymore though.