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Physics in Action: The Triple Chute

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About this Lesson

  • Type: Video Tutorial
  • Length: 2:23
  • Media: Video/mp4
  • Posted: 07/01/2009
  • Use: Watch Online & Download
  • Download: MP4 (iPod compatible)
  • Size: 35 MB

This lesson is part of the series: Physics: Energy, Physics: Conservation of Energy, Physics

This lesson was selected from a broader, comprehensive course, Physics I. This course and others are available from Thinkwell, Inc. The full course can be found at http://www.thinkwell.com/student/product/physics. The full course covers kinematics, dynamics, energy, momentum, the physics of extended objects, gravity, fluids, relativity, oscillatory motion, waves, and more. The course features two renowned professors: Steven Pollock, an associate professor of Physics at he University of Colorado at Boulder and Ephraim Fischbach, a professor of physics at Purdue University.

Steven Pollock earned a Bachelor of Science in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. Prof. Pollock wears two research hats: he studies theoretical nuclear physics, and does physics education research. Currently, his research activities focus on questions of replication and sustainability of reformed teaching techniques in (very) large introductory courses. He received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 1994 and a Boulder Faculty Assembly (CU campus-wide) Teaching Excellence Award in 1998. He is the author of two Teaching Company video courses: “Particle Physics for Non-Physicists: a Tour of the Microcosmos” and “The Great Ideas of Classical Physics”. Prof. Pollock regularly gives public presentations in which he brings physics alive at conferences, seminars, colloquia, and for community audiences.

Ephraim Fischbach earned a B.A. in physics from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. In Thinkwell Physics I, he delivers the "Physics in Action" video lectures and demonstrates numerous laboratory techniques and real-world applications. As part of his mission to encourage an interest in physics wherever he goes, Prof. Fischbach coordinates Physics on the Road, an Outreach/Funfest program. He is the author or coauthor of more than 180 publications including a recent book, “The Search for Non-Newtonian Gravity”, and was made a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2001. He also serves as a referee for a number of journals including “Physical Review” and “Physical Review Letters”.

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To test your understanding of energy conservation, we set up this interesting contest. We have three slides over here, each having different shapes. Notice the different wiggles in this slide, in this slide, and in this slide over here. Now all slides start at the same vertical height and end at the same vertical height. What we're going to do is drop identical balls, we have three identical balls, down these three slides. And the contest is to see which one goes farthest. Does the ball in this slide, the one in this slide, or the one in this slide? We're going to judge that by seeing whether the balls end up in this slot, this slot, or this slot, and the box is going to catch them.
Okay? I'll give you one second to place your bets, and here we go. Ramp number one, closest to you, it landed in the middle chute. Ramp number two landed in the middle chute. Ramp number three landed in the middle chute. Well let's think. Exactly why did that happen? All three balls, irrespective of which chute they traveled down, landed in exactly the same spot. They all went the same distance.
Let's try to understand that now in terms of energy conservation. As I explained in the beginning, all these ramps start at the same vertical height, as you can obviously see. And they end at the same vertical height, all be it at a lower height. Now by energy conservation, the difference in potential energy that the balls had at the beginning and the end is represented by this vertical distance over here. No matter what the shape of the slide, and this is the key point, all three balls lose an amount of potential energy that's proportional to this same vertical height. That means they must have acquired exactly the same kinetic energy by the time they reached this point over here. But since the kinetic energy is one half mv^2, the product of one half the mass times the squared velocity, since the balls all have the same mass, they necessarily must have the same velocity when they reach this point. From which it follows, obviously, that they're going to travel the same horizontal distance when they reach this colored grid. And that's exactly what happens. That's why all three balls landed in the same spot.
Energy
Conservation of Energy
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