When you drop a baseball and a bowling ball, you say that its velocity acts fast…

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When you drop a baseball and a bowling ball, you say that its velocity acts faster and faster as it falls. How can you say that the acceleration is constant at 9.8 m/s2? If it is falling faster and faster wouldn’t the acceleration change also until the object reaches terminal velocity and then it would be accelerating at 9.8 m/s2?

It’s very important to distinguish velocity from acceleration. Acceleration is caused only by forces, so while a ball is falling freely it is accelerating according to gravity alone. In that case it accelerates downward at 9.8 m/s2 throughout its fall (neglecting air resistance). But while the ball’s acceleration is constant, its velocity isn’t. Instead, the ball’s velocity gradually increases in the downward direction, which is to say that the ball accelerates in the downward direction. Velocity doesn’t “act”—only forces “act.” Instead, a ball’s velocity shifts more and more toward the downward direction as it falls.

About terminal velocity: when an object descends very rapidly through the air, it experiences a large upward force of air resistance. This new upward force becomes stronger as the downward speed of the object becomes greater. Eventually this upward air resistance force balances the object’s downward weight and the object stops accelerating downward. It then descends at a constant velocity—obeying its inertia alone. This special downward speed is known as “terminal velocity.” An object’s terminal velocity depends on the strength of gravity, the shape and other characteristics of the object, and the density and other characteristics of the air.

How is there inertia on earth? I though that inertia was just in space.

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How is there inertia on earth? I though that inertia was just in space.

Inertia is everywhere. Left to itself, an object will obey inertia and travel at constant velocity. In deep space, far from any planet or star that exerts significant gravity, an object will exhibit this inertial motion. But on earth, the earth’s gravity introduces complications that make it harder to observe inertial motion. A ball that’s thrown up in the air still exhibits inertial effects, but its downward weight prevents the ball from following its inertia alone. Instead, the ball gradually loses its upward speed and eventually begins to descend instead. So inertia is the basic underlying principle of motion while gravity is a complicating factor.

How does the floor exert a force?

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How does the floor exert a force?

When you stand on the floor, the floor exerts two different kinds of forces on you—an upward support force that balances your downward weight and horizontal frictional forces that prevent you from sliding across the floor. Ultimately, both forces involve electromagnetic forces between the charged particles in the floor and the charged particles in your feet. The support force develops as the atoms in the floor act to prevent the atoms in your feet from overlapping with them. The frictional forces have a similar origin, although they involve microscopic structure in the surfaces.

My daughter did a school project in which we placed a thermometer inside cloths …

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My daughter did a school project in which we placed a thermometer inside cloths of various colors. Black cloth showed the highest temperature, blue next, then red, and finally white. Why is that?

Since light carries energy with it, a cloth that absorbs light also absorbs energy. In most cases, this absorbed energy becomes thermal energy in the cloth. Because of this extra thermal energy, the cloth’s temperature rises and it begins to transfer the thermal energy to its surroundings as heat. Its temperature stops rising when the thermal energy it receives from the light is exactly equal to the thermal energy it transfers to its surroundings as heat. This final temperature depends on how much light it absorbs—if it absorbs lots of light, then it will reach a high temperature before the balance of energy flow sets in.

A cloth’s color is determined by how it absorbs and emits light. Black cloth absorbs essentially all light that hits it, which is why its temperature rises so much. White cloth absorbs virtually no light, which is why it remains cool. Colored cloths fall somewhere in between black and white. Blue cloth absorbs light in the green and red portions of the spectrum while reflecting the blue portion. Red cloth absorbs light in the blue and green portions of the spectrum while reflecting the red portion. Since most light sources put more energy in the red portion of the spectrum than in the blue portion of the spectrum, the blue cloth absorbs more energy than the red cloth. So the sequence of temperatures you observed is the one you should expect to observe.

One final note: most light sources also emit invisible infrared light, which also carries energy. Most of the light from an incandescent lamp is infrared. You can’t tell by looking at a piece of cloth how much infrared light it absorbs and how much it reflects. Nonetheless, infrared light affects the cloth’s temperature. A piece of white cloth that absorbs infrared light may become surprisingly hot and a piece of black cloth that reflects infrared light may not become as hot as you would expect.

Why does a roller coaster end on a lower level than where it starts?

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Why does a roller coaster end on a lower level than where it starts? — L, Staten Island, New York

A roller coaster is a gravity-powered train. Since it has no engine or other means of propulsion, it relies on energy stored in the force of gravity to make it move. This energy, known as “gravitational potential energy,” exists because separating the roller coaster from the earth requires work—they have to be pulled apart to separate them. Since energy is a conserved quantity, meaning that it can’t be created or destroyed, energy invested in the roller coaster by pulling it away from the earth doesn’t disappear. It becomes stored energy: gravitational potential energy. The higher the roller coaster is above the earth’s surface, the more gravitational potential energy it has.

Since the top of the first hill is the highest point on the track, it’s also the point at which the roller coaster’s gravitational potential energy is greatest. Moreover, as the roller coaster passes over the top of the first hill, its total energy is greatest. Most of that total energy is gravitational potential energy but a small amount is kinetic energy, the energy of motion.

From that point on, the roller coaster does two things with its energy. First, it begins to transform that energy from one form to another—from gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy and from kinetic energy to gravitational potential energy, back and forth. Second, it begins to transfer some of its energy to its environment, mostly in the form of heat and sound. Each time the roller coaster goes downhill, its gravitational potential energy decreases and its kinetic energy increases. Each time the roller coaster goes uphill, its kinetic energy decreases and its gravitational potential energy increases. But each transfer of energy isn’t complete because some of the energy is lost to heat and sound. Because of this lost energy, the roller coaster can’t return to its original height after coasting down hill. That’s why each successive hill must be lower than the previous hill. Eventually the roller coaster has lost so much of its original total energy that the ride must end. With so little total energy left, the roller coaster can’t have much gravitational potential energy and must be much lower than the top of the first hill.

It’s then time for the riders to get off, new riders to board, and for a motor-driven chain to drag the roller coaster back to the top of the hill to start the process again. The chain does work on the roller coaster, investing energy into it so that it can carry its riders along the track at break-neck speed again. Overall, energy enters the roller coaster by way of the chain and leaves the roller coaster as heat and sound. In the interim, it goes back and forth between gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy as the roller coaster goes up and down the hills.

Is bouncing related to elasticity or hardness? Can a hard body rebound?

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Is bouncing related to elasticity or hardness? Can a hard body rebound? — DIY, Lyon, France

Bouncing is related to elasticity. Any object that stores energy when deformed will rebound when it collides with a rigid surface. As long as the object is elastic, it doesn’t matter whether it’s hard or soft. It will still rebound from a rigid surface. Thus both a rubber ball and a steel marble will rebound strongly when you drop them on a steel anvil.

But hardness does have an important effect on bouncing from a non-rigid surface. When a hard object collides with a non-rigid surface, the surface does some or all of the deforming so that the surface becomes involved in the energy storage and bounce. If the surface is elastic, storing energy well when it deforms, then it will make the object rebound strongly. That’s what happens when a steel marble collides with a rubber block. However, if the surface isn’t very elastic, then the object will not rebound much. That’s what happens when a steel marble collides with a thick woolen carpet.

How does a dead ball work?

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How does a dead ball work? — DIY, Lyon, France

A dead ball, a ball that doesn’t bounce, is one with enormous internal friction. A bouncy ball stores energy when it collides with a surface and then returns this energy when it rebounds. But no ball is perfectly elastic, so some of the collision energy extracted from the ball and surface when they collide is ultimately converted into heat rather than being returned during the rebound. The deader the ball is, the less of the collision energy is returned as rebound energy. A truly dead ball converts all of the collision energy into heat so that it doesn’t rebound at all.

Most of the missing collision energy is lost because of sliding friction within the ball. Molecules move across one another as the ball’s surface dents inward and these molecules rub. This rubbing produces heat and diminishes the elastic potential energy stored in the ball. When the ball subsequently undents, there just isn’t as much stored energy available for a strong rebound. The classic dead “ball” is a beanbag. When you throw a beanbag at a wall, it doesn’t rebound because all of its energy is lost through sliding friction between the beans as the beanbag dents.

Is there any equipment that can track people in a large, dense forest?

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Is there any equipment that can track people in a large, dense forest? — BRAR, India

To track someone in a forest, he must be emitting or reflecting something toward you and doing it in a way that is different from his surroundings. For example, if he is talking in a quiet forest, you can track him by his sound emissions. Or if he is exposed to sunlight in green surroundings, you can track him by his reflections of light.

But while both of these techniques work fine at short distances, they aren’t so good at large distances in a dense forest. A better scheme is to look for his thermal radiation. All objects emit thermal radiation to some extent and the spectral character of this thermal radiation depends principally on the temperatures of the objects. If the person is hotter than his surroundings, as is almost always the case, he will emit a different spectrum of thermal radiation than his surrounds. Light sensors that operate in the deep infrared can detect a person’s thermal radiation and distinguish it from that of his cooler surroundings. Still, viewing that thermal radiation requires a direct line-of-sight from the person to the infrared sensor, so if the forest is too dense, the person is untrackable.

Why does a badminton birdie have such a large tip? Does making it bigger protect…

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Why does a badminton birdie have such a large tip? Does making it bigger protect the racket? — J, California

The large, rounded head of a badminton birdie serves at least two purposes: it makes sure that the birdie bounces predictably off the racket’s string mesh and it protects the strings and birdie from damage. If the birdie’s head were smaller, it would strike at most a small area on one of the racket strings. If it hit that string squarely, the birdie might bounce predictably. But if it hit at a glancing angle, the birdie would bounce off at a sharp angle. By spreading out the contact between the birdie and the string mesh, the large head makes the birdie bounce as though it had hit a solid surface rather than one with holes.

Spreading out the contact also prevents damage to the racket and birdie. If they collided over only a tiny area, the forces they exerted on one another would be concentrated over that area and produce enormous local pressures. These pressures could cut the birdie or break a string. But with the birdie’s large head, the pressures involved are mild and nothing breaks.

If you use a heavier racket, will you be able to hit a badminton birdie farther?…

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If you use a heavier racket, will you be able to hit a badminton birdie farther? — J, California

Any time you hit an object with a racket or bat, there’s a question about how heavy the racket or bat should be for maximum distance. Actually, it isn’t weight that’s most important in a racket or bat, it’s mass—the measure of the racket or bat’s inertia. The more massive a racket or bat is, the more inertia it has and the less it slows down when it collides with something else. A more massive racket will slow less when it hits a birdie. From that observation, you might think that larger mass is always better. But a more massive racket or bat is also harder to swing because of its increased inertia.

So there are trade offs in racket or bat mass. For badminton, the birdie has so little mass that it barely slows the racket when the two collide. Increasing the racket’s mass would allow it to hit the birdie slightly farther, but only if you continued to swing the racket as fast as before. Since increasing the racket mass will make it harder to swing, it’s probably not worthwhile. In all likelihood, people have experimented with racket masses and have determined that the standard mass is just about optimal for the game.