Two steel balls are loaded onto a spring-loaded actuator which, when released, causes one of the balls to fall straight down and the other to fall with a noticeable horizontal velocity. The fact that they land simultaneously on the table or floor is made evident as the sounds of their respective impacts are heard in unison.
Setup
To set up:
- clamp base to table
- get balls from cylinder that is attached to the rod that holds the spring gun
- load gun and put sphere with hole on the back of the gun and ball with flat section on the platform at the front
- when fired, the wall of the gun will cause the rod to escape the sphere, making the sphere fall freely down; at this same time the other ball will be ejected forward.
Set the apparatus up over the metal plates in 106/120 so that the impact with the floor is loud enough for students to hear.
PIRA DCS 1D60.20