Related papers: The falling slinky
The derivation of the equation of one-dimensional movement of a solitary shock wave is given. This derivation shows, that the differential equation of movement of a solitary plane shock wave in the channel with variable area, is exact, if…
A loop of chain can move along its own tangents, maintaining a steady shape. An open-ended chain undergoing a nontrivial motion must change its shape. One consequence is that chains pulled around objects will fail to follow the contours of…
A beer bottle or soda can on a table, when slightly tipped and released, falls to an upright position and then rocks up to a somewhat opposite tilt. Superficially this rocking motion involves a collision when the flat circular base of the…
A scroll wave in a sufficiently thin layer of an excitable medium with negative filament tension can be stable nevertheless due to filament rigidity. Above a certain critical thickness of the medium, such scroll wave will have a tendency to…
The friction of a stationary moving skate on smooth ice is investigated, in particular in relation to the formation of a thin layer of water between skate and ice. It is found that the combination of ploughing and sliding gives a friction…
When a falling jet of fluid strikes a horizontal fluid layer, a hydraulic jump arises downstream of the point of impact provided a critical flow rate is exceeded. We here examine a phenomenon that arises below this jump threshold, a…
The fluid dynamics video illustrates the interaction of two disks falling in tandem at Reynolds number close to 100. Two fluorescent dyes were used to visualize the wake of each body. We can observe that the trailing body accelerates thanks…
We report a new type of drop instability, where the density difference between the drop and the solvent is negative. We show that the drop falls inside the solvent down to a minimum height, then fragmentation takes place and secondary…
A falling liquid drop, after impact on a rigid substrate, deforms and spreads, owing to the normal reaction force. Subsequently, if the substrate is non-wetting, the drop retracts and then jumps off. As we show here, not only is the impact…
The one-dimensional fall of a folded chain with one end suspended from a rigid support and a chain falling from a resting heap on a table is studied. Because their Lagrangians contain no explicit time dependence, the falling chains are…
We study the formation of shocks on the surface of a granular material draining through an orifice at the bottom of a quasi-two dimensional silo. At high flow rates, the surface is observed to deviate strongly from a smooth linear inclined…
We study the behavior of cylindrical objects as they sink into a dry granular bed fluidized due to lateral oscillations, in order to shed light on human constructions and other objects. Somewhat unexpectedly, we have found that, within a…
We report an instability of a slider slowly dragged at the surface of a granular bed in a quasistatic regime. The boat-shaped slider sits on the granular medium under its own weight and is free to translate vertically and to rotate around…
We solve equations, describing in a simplified way the newtonian dynamics of a selfgravitating nonrotating spheroidal body after loss of stability. We find that contraction to a singularity happens only in a pure spherical collapse, and…
The steady state reached by a system of particles sliding down a fluctuating surface has interesting properties. Particle clusters form and break rapidly, leading to a broad distribution of sizes and large fluctuations. The density-density…
The free fall of three particles under Newtonian attraction allows to illustrate some of the complexities of the general three body problem. The total collapse or singularity that occurs when starting from one of the five central…
A ball rolled over a shallow step will experience an increase in velocity along the direction perpendicular to the step. This causes a deflection in the ball's trajectory. In this paper we derive the equations that describe the motion of a…
A small sphere placed on the top of a big static frictionless sphere, slips until it leaves the surface at an angle $\theta_{l}=\cos^{-1}{2/3}$. On the other extreme, if the surface of the big sphere has coefficient of static friction,…
We study the motion of elastic networks driven over a random substrate. Our model which includes local friction forces leads to complex dynamical behavior. We find a transition to a sliding state which belongs to a new universality class.…
The Rattleback is a very popular science toy shown to students all over the world to demonstrate the non-triviality of rotational motion. When spun on a horizontal table, this boat-shaped object behaves in a peculiar way. Although the…