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To: jwsea55
Think of it this way. The bottom has already fallen.
The constant force of gravity can only tension the slinky so much. Since it has already “fallen” as far as it can with gravity there is the opposite tension already loaded in the slinky. Let go of the top and the gravity and tension (being equal) have to catch up to eachother before the bottom will fall.

If you were to stretch the slinky longer than plain gravitational forces the bottom would actually rise before falling because the tension is more than gravity. If you compress the slinky all the way and drop it the whole thing will fall at once.

18 posted on 10/04/2012 5:22:20 PM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Organic Panic
Interesting!!! Thanks.

It is amazing how the energy stored in a tensioned coil changes things. But that "damn bottom" still doesn't move. Ha Ha.

26 posted on 10/04/2012 5:32:42 PM PDT by jwsea55
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To: Organic Panic; Randy Larsen; jwsea55
Tension / gravity / center of mass / clear solutions versus some ersatz geek with a video camera.

That's all pretty clear.

What it leaves me wondering at is the simple genius behind the Slinky itself.

(Which, by the way, worked way better in the original steel version..I just couldn't avoid buying one of the current plastic [!] imitations.)

35 posted on 10/04/2012 6:29:54 PM PDT by norton
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To: Organic Panic

I watched closely, again, and listened, again, to what this professor tried to explain. (Forgive me last time I just tried to explain in plain English why it appears the bottom of the slinky doesn’t move and didn’t study this video closely) The “signal delay” to get from the top of the slinky to the bottom part of the slinky is nonsense. He is attempting to assign some magical property to a slinky. He conveniently ignored what happened when you held the top of the slinky at a fixed height and allowed the slinky to extend under the force of gravity. All you see in this video is the end result of the stretched out slinky dropped from the top after extension so it only appears the bottom doesn’t move.

The easiest I can explain it is every coil on the slinky has fallen as much as it possibly can with spring tension exactly matching gravity. The coiling and twisting properties he tries to explain as “signal delay” is silly. All those “signals” are contained in the tension / torsion of the spring and are stored in all the various kinetic fashions when the spring (slinky) was stretched out. This “storage effect can be seen by the top coils being a greater distance then the bottom coils. Each of those coils are storing energy. If you were to watch the drop that stretched out the slinky in slow motion (which was not provided) you will see the twists and turns as they occured.

P.S. I design aircraft flight control systems. You can spend a lifetime on spring mechanics and still not understand the physics involved. I suspect this professor is demonstrating a case of “protect the hypothesis and protect the model” as is so common as demonstrated in global warming models. He is a lot smarter than me indeed but when he fails to show and explain what happened to that slinky when he uncoiled it (dropped it but held on to the top) I am very suspect of his explanation. In fact, I comfortably call his conclusions bogus. When he and the presesnter start talking about a lead slinky acting differently and whatnot he is engaging in nonsense. A spring is a spring is a spring and they are all subject to the same physics. The exact same thing will happen with a lead slinky, a plastic slinky, or an Obama unicorn fart slinky.

This is nothing more mysterious than a stretched out compression spring and gravity going on. No magic, no delayed signal, no “gravity is faster than light,” no changing center of mass. It is simple spring mechanics and I don’t dare go to the math equations involved.

>Reference for anyone wishing to mathematically challenge me -— Machinery Handbook 26 Edition, pg 285-332
>Hooke’s Law
>engineersedge(dot)com
>K factor
>http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99245.htm


52 posted on 10/05/2012 12:21:24 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Organic Panic

I watched closely, again, and listened, again, to what this professor tried to explain. (Forgive me last time I just tried to explain in plain English why it appears the bottom of the slinky doesn’t move and didn’t study this video closely) The “signal delay” to get from the top of the slinky to the bottom part of the slinky is nonsense. He is attempting to assign some magical property to a slinky. He conveniently ignored what happened when you held the top of the slinky at a fixed height and allowed the slinky to extend under the force of gravity. All you see in this video is the end result of the stretched out slinky dropped from the top after extension so it only appears the bottom doesn’t move.

The easiest I can explain it is every coil on the slinky has fallen as much as it possibly can with spring tension exactly matching gravity. The coiling and twisting properties he tries to explain as “signal delay” is silly. All those “signals” are contained in the tension / torsion of the spring and are stored in all the various kinetic fashions when the spring (slinky) was stretched out. This “storage effect can be seen by the top coils being a greater distance then the bottom coils. Each of those coils are storing energy. If you were to watch the drop that stretched out the slinky in slow motion (which was not provided) you will see the twists and turns as they occured.

P.S. I design aircraft flight control systems. You can spend a lifetime on spring mechanics and still not understand the physics involved. I suspect this professor is demonstrating a case of “protect the hypothesis and protect the model” as is so common as demonstrated in global warming models. He is a lot smarter than me indeed but when he fails to show and explain what happened to that slinky when he uncoiled it (dropped it but held on to the top) I am very suspect of his explanation. In fact, I comfortably call his conclusions bogus. When he and the presesnter start talking about a lead slinky acting differently and whatnot he is engaging in nonsense. A spring is a spring is a spring and they are all subject to the same physics. The exact same thing will happen with a lead slinky, a plastic slinky, or an Obama unicorn fart slinky.

This is nothing more mysterious than a stretched out compression spring and gravity going on. No magic, no delayed signal, no “gravity is faster than light,” no changing center of mass. It is simple spring mechanics and I don’t dare go to the math equations involved.

>Reference for anyone wishing to mathematically challenge me -— Machinery Handbook 26 Edition, pg 285-332
>Hooke’s Law
>engineersedge(dot)com
>K factor
>http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99245.htm


53 posted on 10/05/2012 12:21:34 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Organic Panic

Why does the force of gravity build up? Why is it not instant?


58 posted on 10/05/2012 5:19:55 AM PDT by bmwcyle (Corollary - Electing the same person over and over and expecting a different outcome is insanity)
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To: Organic Panic

P.S. The spring weight is the same compressed and uncompressed.


59 posted on 10/05/2012 5:25:13 AM PDT by bmwcyle (Corollary - Electing the same person over and over and expecting a different outcome is insanity)
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