Slinky Mystery!

COOL! If you stretch out a slinky and hold it above ground, when you let go of the top, the bottom end won't fall until the top reaches it. Hard to explain, so just watch.

reply to post by jiggerj


Longer Slinkys in slo-motion.

I feel like I've seen this on ATS recently. It's a neat demonstration of how information/energy travels though. The higher part of the slinky has more potential energy, right?

I feel bad I never took a physics class

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


Yeah someone posted about this a while ago and jiggerj was the second person to post in the thread lol

www.abovetopsecret.com...

great topic, it certainly got me thinking about useful purposes for that effect.

This is such a coincidence. My son got a slinky yesterday at a birthday party. He was on one end of the room holding it and I was on the other side stretching it out as far as it would go.

He just wanted to see how long it was. I got bored and told him I was letting go now. He got scared that it would recoil and hurt him. I reassured him it wasnt like a tape measure and would recoil slowly and drag the floor.

OOPS! Mom was wrong. It recoiled harder and faster than a measured and slapped him all over his face and torso. Lol so yeah they don't touch the floor I learned!

On the subject of delayed responses at a distance –
When I got my boat and had to pay attention to the tides, I was stuck by the observation that the tides bulged not just on the side of the earth facing the sun or moon, but on the opposite side as well. How can that be? What is pulling on the water opposite of the sun?

The answer is the water is pulled toward the Sun. The Earth is pulled toward the Sun and the water on the opposite side of the earth is left behind forming a bulge or high tide opposite the Sun.
Aren’t the worlds amazing?

Spring equation F=-kX, the bottom of the spring is in equilibrium until the top is let go of. The top is in equilibrium too in your hand and feels the tension of the whole system plus the acceleration of gravity all the way down. Its incredible that static systems (holding the spring steady) and dynamic systems (dropping the spring) are seamless and there exists a continuity between the two of them. Thankfully there is continuity between static and dynamic or else that would be even stranger!
The mention of wave propagation through the media is interesting and dependent on the media itself, and the impact force ties the force, media and directions all neatly together.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

 

Yeah someone posted about this a while ago and jiggerj was the second person to post in the thread lol

www.abovetopsecret.com...

edit on 14-7-2013 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

Ha! How's that for a lousy memory. I did remember to do a search on Slinky, but I didn't see that thread. Jeez, my daughter sent the slinky clip to me yesterday I swear it was like I watched it for the very first time.