yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Slinky Drop Extended


2m read
·Nov 10, 2024

All right, you've made your prediction, and we've tied a tennis ball to the base of the Slinky. Here, and now we're going to extend it and drop it, and see what happens to the tennis ball. The heavy weight of the tennis ball is going to stretch the spring a little bit further, so I'm going to cheat a little bit by shortening it a fraction at the top. All right, so we can see both the top and bottom ends.

Sounds good? On the count of three, I'll drop it. Ready? One, two, three! Whoa! What did you see there? It fell very rapidly. I need to look at that inflamation to see what's going on. All right, let's go to the slow motion [Music] footage.

So when you watch that, you see that the tennis ball really remains stationary until the whole Slinky is collapsed above it, correct? The, uh, white force acting on the tennis ball is countered by the tension force acting upwards until the information travels down the Slinky that the tension has changed.

It's really quite strange because it's as though the falling Slinky can support the tennis ball in a way. That's what it looks like, and indeed, that's what it's doing. I just find that so amazing and so counterintuitive.

We study physics because lots of unexpected things happen, and it's those unexpected things that make physics interesting. It's, uh, it's really strange. It's like, uh, if you were falling out of a plane and you had a big enough Slinky, you might, uh, be okay for a little while. I wouldn't try it, though; you're better off with a parachute.

Exactly! All right, well, thanks Rod, much appreciated your, uh, your help today. It's been fun.

More Articles

View All
Conservation of momentum | Physics | Khan Academy
When we shoot a cannon, not only does the ball go forward, but the cannon itself goes backward. This means when we shot it, the ball gained a forward momentum, and the cannon itself also gained a backward momentum. The big question is: if we know what the…
Warren Buffett: The BEST investment during inflation
So, the best investment by far is inflation. It is at its highest level in decades. As a result, inflation has been the number one concern for nearly everyone recently. But what if I told you there was a way for you to never have to worry about inflation …
Energy equation
In recent years, the amount of CO2 released by humans into the planet has approached 40 billion tons. If you wanted to break that down based on people, we’ve recently crossed 7 billion people on the planet. So that’s going to be approximately 7 billion pe…
Innovation Requires Decentralization and a Frontier
Innovation requires a couple of things. One of the things that it seems to require is decentralization. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Athenian city-states, the Italian city-states, or even the United States, when it was more free-form and invo…
How to Improve Your Life in 24 HOURS
[Music] If you’ve ever browsed self-improvement forums like on Reddit, then you’ll often come across some pretty good advice, some pretty questionable stuff—no doubt. But every once in a while, there’s a little nugget of wisdom that sticks with you, and …
Fish Wheel Harvest - Deleted Scene | Life Below Zero
[Music] I’ve had my fish whe running for a few hours now while I’ve been at home taking care of the dogs and doing some other chores. Coming back here, check it, see what I’m catching. This is a big thing for me because it’s going to relieve me financiall…