- #1
member659127
- TL;DR Summary
- Newton's cradle
That question came from one of the students in my classical mechanics class, it took me unprepared at first but was able to give the correct answer in like half a minute. They liked it a lot and it initiated a useful discussion about laws of nature extending even to some particle physics concepts like Compton scattering. So I wanted to share it here also... Tutors don't give the answer so quickly please
The famous Newton cradle: You have several balls hanging. You release one from left, it hits the balls and the rightmost one launches. Everybody has seen this. Now, another case. You release 2 balls together from the left and you observe that 2 balls launch from right. The question is WHY? Why not a single ball from right but two to be more clear...
The famous Newton cradle: You have several balls hanging. You release one from left, it hits the balls and the rightmost one launches. Everybody has seen this. Now, another case. You release 2 balls together from the left and you observe that 2 balls launch from right. The question is WHY? Why not a single ball from right but two to be more clear...