A particle of mass , moving with a velocity makes an elastic collision in one dimension with a stationary particle of mass . During the collision, they remain in contact with each other for an extremely small time : Their force of contact, with time is shown in the figure. Then

In an elastic head-on collision between two particles, the velocity of the particle gets exchanged, therefore net change of momentum of a particle is,
From newton's second law, the rate of change of momentum is force.
Here, is force of contact during the collision for a small-time that causes the change in momentum of particle.
Thus, the area under the graph of curve gives the change in momentum.
Therefore,