The cradle is better than the track because it allows for larger weights, where the track would require a denser material or hollow particles; but the track is easier for measuring incoming and outgoing force because on a steady grade, it’s simply a measure of distance, which is easy to capture roughly, even without a camera.

If momentum = velocity*mass, then doubling the velocity will double the momentum. Using the cradle, if you drop a ball from very very close to the first stationary ball, a single ball will move from the other side and move a very very short distance. If you then drop the ball from perpendicular, a single ball will move from the other side, and rise to (nearly) perpendicular. I have seen this much in my own observations. I don't think we need to do any calculations to understand that the impact velocity in the first essay is way less than half the impact velocity in the second essay (we don’t need exact numbers; we just need to know that the impact velocity is more than double). That means we have met your criteria for increasing the momentum to more than that of two balls at the first velocity, yet one ball still comes out.

A mental model to demonstrate my theory of “two particles in = two impacts = two particles out” is to imagine a bit of sponge between the last two balls in a Newton’s cradle. Pull the second ball out (which will push the first ball ahead of it) to a great enough height that the momentum of the outside ball’s impact is enough to completely squeeze the sponge and cause a second impact wave. The second ball would impact measurably later than the first, and before the ejected particle came back. Pretty clearly, two balls will emerge from the other side. This is what I think is happening on a micro scale when two independent balls are dropped together.>> ^oritteropo:

Thanks <img class="smiley" src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/smile.gif">
I was actually going to suggest that the first part of the experiment should be fairly easy to replicate, with a track and marbles or ball bearings or similar. Unless you have a constant grade the velocity (and therefore momentum) calculations will be a bit tedious, and it occurs to me that angular momentum may have some effect too, so perhaps a video camera and some marks on the track (or sensors and a microcontroller) to directly measure the velocity just prior to impact would be easier. To confirm or disprove my assertion you want to keep increasing the momentum of impact until it's more than the momentum of a two balls, and see what happens.
There are videos of a Newton's cradle type setup only with different sized balls, I might go looking tonight.
>> ^messenger:
That shoulda been @oritteropo too.

This thread has gotten me very curious to try all these things out for myself.

As far as equally weighted particles go, what you describe is not what we observe. We always see the same number of particles leave as came in, no matter their total momentum. A single particle going 1m/s ejects one particle also going 1m/s (I'm talking in ideal terms). A single particle going 2m/s doesn't release two particles going 1m/s, just one going 2m/s. The same particle going 100m/s likewise doesn't release 100 particles going 1m/s, nor 50 going 2m/s nor any other combination. As the force passes through the stationary particles, there's nothing to say what the mass or velocity of the striking particle was, just what the product of those two things was.

As for different sized particles, not having seen this done, if a solid (I mean a single piece, or welded together) 2kg particle came in at 1m/s, I predict a single 1kg particle would be ejected at 2m/s. My reason is the same as above: that when one ball strikes, the only information transmitted through the stationary particles is the total amount of force, not the velocity or mass of the striking object. Thus, the force transmitted through the stationary particles would be identical whether a 1kg ball struck at 2m/s or a 2kg ball struck at 1m/s. All this force is transmitted into the last ball which leaves with the same amount of force in the form of velocity as a factor of its mass, whatever that may be.

I think fusing the two balls together would fundamentally change their behaviour. I think when two loose balls hit together, the first one hits the stationary ones, bounces back towards the second ball which then stops, sending a second shock wave through the stationary particles, thus sending two signals very close together, and releasing two particles out the other side.

To continue the thought experiment, what if it were a 1.2kg particle striking a row of 1kg balls? I think it would be one particle going out at 1.2m/s, rather than 1 particle at 1m/s and a second at 0.2m/s or two of them together at 0.6m/s.>> ^heathen:

As you said momentum is mass velocity, and force is mass acceleration.
It's the mass of the particles entering that determines the mass of the particles leaving.
As the balls in a Newton's cradle all have equal mass it's tempting to restate that as the number of particles rather than the mass of the particles.
However if you designed a cradle to have four 1kg balls and one 2kg ball then swinging the 2kg ball would cause two 1kg balls to be displaced. (The same effect as taping or gluing two 1kg balls together.)
In a normal Newton's Cradle the acceleration, due to gravity, is constant.
The constant mass and constant acceleration cause the predictability, as the only energy lost is to air resistance and other negligibles such as sound or minimal compression of the balls on impact.
The forces introduced by the magnet scale inversely with distance, making the outcome a lot more unpredictable.

>> ^messenger:

I know that multiple balls hitting one side will cause multiple balls to be released from the other side, but momentum isn't measured by counting the incoming particles; it's measured by mass velocity, and that's all. One ball hitting with great speed usually releases one ball at great speed out the other side. Two balls with very low speed, even with less total momentum than the single fast-moving ball, will release two balls from the other side at the same low speed. It's something about the number of particles, not their momentum, that determines how many are ejected.

As you said momentum is mass*velocity, and force is mass*acceleration.

It's the mass of the particles entering that determines the mass of the particles leaving.
As the balls in a Newton's cradle all have equal mass it's tempting to restate that as the number of particles rather than the mass of the particles.
However if you designed a cradle to have four 1kg balls and one 2kg ball then swinging the 2kg ball would cause two 1kg balls to be displaced. (The same effect as taping or gluing two 1kg balls together.)

In a normal Newton's Cradle the acceleration, due to gravity, is constant.
The constant mass and constant acceleration cause the predictability, as the only energy lost is to air resistance and other negligibles such as sound or minimal compression of the balls on impact.

The forces introduced by the magnet scale inversely with distance, making the outcome a lot more unpredictable.

I know that multiple balls hitting one side will cause multiple balls to be released from the other side, but momentum isn't measured by counting the incoming particles; it's measured by mass*velocity, and that's all. One ball hitting with great speed usually releases one ball at great speed out the other side. Two balls with very low speed, even with less total momentum than the single fast-moving ball, will release two balls from the other side at the same low speed. It's something about the number of particles, not their momentum, that determines how many are ejected.>> ^oritteropo:

Try splitting the beads in a Newton's cradle so there are more than one swinging in at the end, like this:
[embed removed]
It's not that the balls know anything in particular, it's that the momentum generated by a single ball is enough to dislodge an equal ball from the other end. In the case of the three balls, there is the right amount of momentum to dislodge three balls.
Now, when we have a magnet involved the single bead is accelerated towards the magnet at a great rate of knots imparting extra momentum so it's now equivalent to many balls (with just gravity) and the only thing stopping all the balls on the other side of the magnet flying off is that the same magnetic force is stopping the closer ones from moving.
>> ^messenger:
Love it, as with just about anything with Sixty Symbols.
I'd like to know why two balls broke off, rather than one, which is what happens in Newton's Cradle, no matter how hard to smack them. The row of particles has no way of knowing that the incoming particle was accelerated before it struck, so there must be something else at work here. I wonder if it's the incoming particle shifting the whole mass in the negative direction as it pulls on the magnet, and if the magnet were fixed in place if just one ball would move off.

It's just so much easier to lie, isn't it? Or at the very least to allow yourself to be taken in and believe a lie because it challenges your fast-held, dogmatic belief system, no?

FYI: The so-called "black bloc" of anarchists who perpetrate these acts of vandalism during peaceful protests are in no way, shape or from part of OWS. There is plenty of collected first-hand and anecdotal evidence now that the "black bloc" which sought to infiltrate and create an agenda within OWS was actually funded and promoted from without by the very same type of people who posted this video here on VS (ie, those who promote a rich, tax-enabled, elite class to rule over all other Americans).

The "black bloc" has since been ejected and disavowed by OWS to eliminate the presence of police/political agent provocateurs from causing further harm to the avowed peaceful intent of the OWS movement.

Don't be fooled and please keep your eyes open. Peace.

Watch OWS Infiltration by Unscrupulous Liars

Ahh, classy.

And funny.

This takes me right back to my Uni days and 'Green Week' A week of competitions and events involving beer and dope.

I have photos (from a film camera, yeah, it's a while back now) of vomit in mid ejection... there were bins setup specifically for spewing in.


Yup, University, it's all about the higher learning

They measure my mass ejections in solar masses as well, giggity!

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Yeah, fair point.

>> ^Lolthien:


You are weary of his calling you a douche, and he is weary of you calling a guy whose body has been blown apart and is barely holding himself together for his wife and kids an idiot.

Way to raise the level of discourse here fellas.

>> ^aurens:

Funny: I don't find it at all hard to argue with the results. It was billions of years of biological evolution—particularly the development of coping mechanisms for acute stresses—that saved Captain Udell, not his appeal to the (presumably) Christian god. (Surely I don't need to explain the difference between correlation and causation, do I?) And yes, if he really did pause to pray, then his religious impulse was self-defeating: it delayed the instinctual biological responses that eventually saved his life.
The difference between me and the Westboro Baptist Church—I'll spell it out—is in intention, delivery, and degree. Of course, your criticism lost all its punch as soon as you went off the deep end in equating me with those crazies.
I learned from the Hitch, thankfully, to be weary of people like you, people who want to chastise—or, worse, forbid—the criticism of religion on the grounds that it's unacceptably irreverent. Well, goddamn right its irreverent (in the etymological sense); that's the point.>> ^Asmo:
Both are insensitive and intolerant towards people who have not offered any overt offense. Both are self justified and self righteous. I don't see much of a difference, even if you pan it off as humour.
Besides, the humour would have been closer to the target if the guy had actually died from his "self-defeating religious impulses". As it stands, he lived versus incredible odds in spite of taking time for prayer. Kinda hard to argue with the results in this case... X D



You are weary of his calling you a douche, and he is weary of you calling a guy whose body has been blown apart and is barely holding himself together for his wife and kids an idiot.



Way to raise the level of discourse here fellas.

Funny: I don't find it at all hard to argue with the results. It was billions of years of biological evolution—particularly the development of coping mechanisms for acute stresses—that saved Captain Udell, not his appeal to the (presumably) Christian god. (Surely I don't need to explain the difference between correlation and causation, do I?) And yes, if he really did pause to pray, then his religious impulse was self-defeating: it delayed the instinctual biological responses that eventually saved his life.

The difference between me and the Westboro Baptist Church—I'll spell it out—is in intention, delivery, and degree. Of course, your criticism lost all its punch as soon as you went off the deep end in equating me with those crazies.

I learned from the Hitch, thankfully, to be weary of people like you, people who want to chastise—or, worse, forbid—the criticism of religion on the grounds that it's unacceptably irreverent. Well, goddamn right its irreverent (in the etymological sense); that's the point.>> ^Asmo:
Both are insensitive and intolerant towards people who have not offered any overt offense. Both are self justified and self righteous. I don't see much of a difference, even if you pan it off as humour.
Besides, the humour would have been closer to the target if the guy had actually died from his "self-defeating religious impulses". As it stands, he lived versus incredible odds in spite of taking time for prayer. Kinda hard to argue with the results in this case... X D

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Tags for this video have been changed from 'F15, Jet, ejection, 800, mph, ow my lips, Navigator took Goose Cosplay seriously' to 'F15, Jet, ejection, 800mph, ow my lips, Navigator took Goose Cosplay seriously' - edited by xxovercastxx

>> ^aurens:

Yep, precisely my intention. It's my considered opinion that a tongue-in-cheek Videosift comment intended to highlight the silliness of self-defeating religious impulses is the moral equivalent of anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Islamic, anti-Jewish funeral pickets.>> ^Asmo:
[...] You trying to out-douche the Westboro morons?



Both are insensitive and intolerant towards people who have not offered any overt offense. Both are self justified and self righteous. I don't see much of a difference, even if you pan it off as humour.

Besides, the humour would have been closer to the target if the guy had actually died from his "self-defeating religious impulses". As it stands, he lived versus incredible odds in spite of taking time for prayer. Kinda hard to argue with the results in this case... X D