If you hold a Slinky by one end and drop it, the bottom end doesn't actually move until the top end catches up with it. Why is that? Here's an explanation.
As a physicist I did not find this analysis interesting. I think it misses the really amazing thing about the slinky: Why the lowest point, although experiencing the gravitational force too, does not move? It waits the complete collapse! Unfortunately, the explanation is beyond this comment.
I don't have sound right now, as I'm at work, but I would assume that it doesn't fall until the top catches up, as it is contracting at the same rate that it is falling, but I am probably completely off base.
2 comment(s):
As a physicist I did not find this analysis interesting. I think it misses the really amazing thing about the slinky: Why the lowest point, although experiencing the gravitational force too, does not move? It waits the complete collapse! Unfortunately, the explanation is beyond this comment.
I don't have sound right now, as I'm at work, but I would assume that it doesn't fall until the top catches up, as it is contracting at the same rate that it is falling, but I am probably completely off base.
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