urge, impulse (noun)

an instinctive motive

"profound religious impulses"

caprice, impulse, whim (noun)

a sudden desire

"he bought it on an impulse"

nerve impulse, nervous impulse, neural impulse, impulse (noun)

the electrical discharge that travels along a nerve fiber

"they demonstrated the transmission of impulses from the cortex to the hypothalamus"

pulsation, pulsing, pulse, impulse (noun)

(electronics) a sharp transient wave in the normal electrical state (or a series of such transients)

"the pulsations seemed to be coming from a star"

impulse, impulsion, impetus (noun)

the act of applying force suddenly

"the impulse knocked him over"

momentum, impulse (noun)

an impelling force or strength

"the car's momentum carried it off the road"

impulse (Noun)

A thrust; a push; a sudden force that impels.

impulse (Noun)

A wish or urge, particularly a sudden one.

impulse (Noun)

The integral of force over time.

Impulse

In classical mechanics, impulse is defined as the integral of a force with respect to time, which gives you the change in the momentum of the body being acted on by the force. A force causes acceleration, a change in the velocity of the body, for as long as it acts. A force applied over a long time therefore produces a bigger change in momentum than the same force applied briefly: the change in momentum is equal to the product of force and time. Conversely, a small force applied for a long time can produce the same change in momentum - the same impulse - as a large force applied briefly. The SI unit of impulse is the newton second; the quantity of impulse is force × time interval, or in shorthand notation: