Comments on: Producer's Notes for Make At Home: Tabletop Linear Accelerator http://science.kqed.org/quest/2008/10/21/producers-notes-for-make-at-home-tabletop-linear-accelerator/ Explore science, nature and environment stories from Northern California and beyond with KQED’s multimedia series Thu, 24 May 2012 05:51:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Steve Ryan http://science.kqed.org/quest/2008/10/21/producers-notes-for-make-at-home-tabletop-linear-accelerator/#comment-11676 Steve Ryan Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:39:47 +0000 http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/?p=900#comment-11676 What a great basis for a physics lesson! Even leaving magnetism aside, you have force, acceleration, momentum, elasticity, and more. For Bob: The first ball gains energy as the first magnet pulls it. When that ball hits the first magnet and next two balls (balls 2 and 3) most of the energy gets transferred to ball 3. Ball 3 then gets even more energy from the second magnet before repeating the process. To show how the energy accumulates, lets say that the energy added to a ball by one magnet is E. Also make a wild guess that 90% of the energy is transferred at each impact. The energy of the final ball should be 0.9*(0.9*(0.9*(0.9*E+E)+E)+E). What a great basis for a physics lesson! Even leaving magnetism aside, you have force, acceleration, momentum, elasticity, and more.

For Bob: The first ball gains energy as the first magnet pulls it. When that ball hits the first magnet and next two balls (balls 2 and 3) most of the energy gets transferred to ball 3. Ball 3 then gets even more energy from the second magnet before repeating the process.

To show how the energy accumulates, lets say that the energy added to a ball by one magnet is E. Also make a wild guess that 90% of the energy is transferred at each impact. The energy of the final ball should be 0.9*(0.9*(0.9*(0.9*E+E)+E)+E).

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