They could have gotten around that by using a wheeled contraption where the weight did not rotate (needs bearings), or where almost all the weight was very close to the axis. I hope at least you got a gold medal in fudging! SG ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Dyer" <ddyer@real-me.net> To: "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com>; <dasimov@earthlink.net>; "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 2:20 PM Subject: [math-fun] Re: Another physics question
There are probably actual school experiments of this type.
My high school had ramps between wings, and a standard experiment in physics was to calculate G by timing golf balls rolling down the ramp.
The trick was, they hadn't covered angular momentum yet, so the "experiment" was actually to see who was willing to fudge their numbers to make the answer come out right.