Even better than the airplane on a treadmill

If two identical ball bearings are released simultaneously at the top of the two ramps, what is the result?

Do they reach the end of their ramps simultaneously since there's an equal vertical distance?

Does the smooth ramp bearing reach the end first due to the lower distance of travel since it's going in a straight line?

Does the curvy ramp ball bearing reach the bottom first?

No fair looking up the video!!!!!!!

I will post it in the youtoobz thread if & when the arguments here are reasonably settled/lose steam.


MBSRPuUibxk

 

Curvy one wins. Grandson did this "test" in school back in the spring. Kinda interesting.

 

my guess is curvy cuz faster acceleration. will watch now

After watching, Dude needs to clean his room but thanks for sharing!

 

I'm going for hookers and blow.

 

Do any parts of the curvy one go ‘up’? I can’t tell from the pic.

 

I think you grandkid biased the test. Because the straight one should win. Same potential energy but the curvy path is longer

 

And thus greater friction.

 

The ball bearing on the curvy ramp doubles the middle two, throwing out a stylish whip for the crowd.

 

Not necessarily. The fastest curve of decent is not the shortest path, not a straight line. It’s a cycloid curve, called the brachistochrone curve. So if that ramp follows that curve, it’s faster.

 

Also not necessarily. Friction is dependent on normal force. A steep slope has less friction than a shallow slope because the portion of gravity normal to the surface is lower. So the curvy one has less friction in some parts and more in another compared to the straight ramp. It’d take some interesting calculus to prove which one has more friction.

 

Steel ball fired out of a shotgun doesn’t need a ramp ... and is fastest

 

Interesting test. Pulling memory from 12th grade physics class, gravity pulls on everything equally at 9.8 meters/sec. They don't give any clues as to how steep the grade of descent is in either case. I'm going with they finish at the same time.

 

My take is that assuming the ramps and balls are close enough to ideal it's going to be nearly simultaneous. This is assuming thought that the ball doesn't leave the ramp, and the extra distance of the curved path isn't considerably longer. I guess I should say the direct ramp wins by a hair.

 

This concept is particularly relevant for this audience.

 

Clearly the curvy marble is Rossi and the straight one is Biaggi. Cause the straight one got pwned.

 

The key is that the top of the hills match the straight path especially the last hill being right at the end. Being a hard ball and hard flat rolling surface the main factor is gravity as potential energy. The avg speeds will be the same but the curvy path is longer thus the ball takes longer. Now if you had a single parabola or the end point was flat compared to the same slope then the ball would accelerate to top speed faster and have a higher average speed and traverse the longer path faster but the ending of the curved path is the key here

 

If you think about it, this comparison actually related to motorcycle racing.

In the case of the ball bearing, if you accelerate more at first (the steep slope) you can gain speed faster that then makes you faster across the rest of the path. Just like a bike that accelerates faster out of a corner will carry more speed along the entire straight. Corner exit torque versus high rpm HP.

The slowest path for the ball bearing would be a very gradual slope that suddenly drops at the end. The ball bearing would creep along barely gaining any speed until the end of the path. The fastest path isn’t the ball bearing dropping right away and then curving to a horizontal path because that path would be too long. So a mix of gaining speed at first but not making the path too long would be the fastest. Per above, some calculus will get you there.

As for the rollercoaster scenario… I dunno, maybe the one where the ball gains speed faster at the beginning.

 

Excellent analogy.

 

hookerz and blow!!!!!