The small water was placed in front of the big beans before they were released to roll down the hill. The farther they rolled, the greater the water's lead became.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Small water beats big bacony beans!
Here's a fun pic from AP Physics today. We raced a solid can of baked beans (with bacon), c.1990 against a cylindrical bottle of water. A student suggested we try catching the result using the Casio EX-FH100's multiple exposure mode. We caught this at the very end of class. The water beats the beans. But why did it win? Sloshy liquid? Smaller radius? Hmmm...
The small water was placed in front of the big beans before they were released to roll down the hill. The farther they rolled, the greater the water's lead became.
The small water was placed in front of the big beans before they were released to roll down the hill. The farther they rolled, the greater the water's lead became.
It was obviously an age thing -- the young, spritier bottle of water was able to outrun the old can of beans. The water bottle was thinner, too, so it was probably in better shape.
ReplyDelete(Or, something about angular momentum, but I like my first answer better. I'm also going to refer to myself as an old can of beans from now on.)