Illusions of Elastic Collisions in the Sciences:

Employing elastic collisions rather than the reality of inelastic collisions simplifies much of the theoretical sciences. The consequences of such simplification is completely ignored/unrealized by the majority, hence must be addressed. At the crux of the problem is arguably the illusion of elastic collisions in kinetic theory, but this extends to other realms of physics including statistical theory, Lagrangian mechanics and the Navier-Stokes equations.