Steve, Sounds good to me. Anything but the tempting b. btw I thought the answer was a. Oops. When I ran the experiment it looked like just the last ball was flying out. I was totally perplexed. Last ball with a bunch of clattering. When I wrote up the problem I added the choice c at the last second. - Gary On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 2:09 PM, Stephen B. Gray <stevebg@roadrunner.com> wrote:
Here's the question. You have a Newton's Cradle. The first ball has twice the mass it normally would. You swing it so it hits the second ball. What happens?
a. the last ball flies out b. the last two balls fly out c. something else
Turns out the answer is c.
You didn't say what "something else" is, so I will put in my authoritative answer:
The string breaks because the ball is too heavy.
Steve Gray
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